


Kintsukuroi

by Ookami_Hime



Series: Not the Standard Unit [3]
Category: Captain America - All Media Types, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Anal Fingering, Anal Sex, Angst, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, Avengers: Age of Ultron (Movie), Blow Jobs, Brainwashing, Canon-Typical Violence, Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Conspiracy Theories, Cunnilingus, Dirty Talk, Dissociation, Domestic Fluff, F/M, Hydra (Marvel), Implied/Referenced Sexual Harassment, M/M, Nightmares, Old Married Couple, Panic Attacks, Past Brainwashing, Polyamory, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, SHIELD, Soulmate-Identifying Marks, Soulmates, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-07-19
Updated: 2018-11-25
Packaged: 2018-12-04 08:42:12
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 74,524
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11551608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ookami_Hime/pseuds/Ookami_Hime
Summary: Kintsukuroi (金繕い): (n.) (v. phr.) “to repair with gold”; the art of repairing pottery with gold or silver lacquer and understanding that the piece is more beautiful for having been brokenOr what exactly are you prepared to do in order to keep your soulmates?





	1. Mr. and Mrs. Rogers

**Author's Note:**

> LOOK WHO FINALLY CRAWLED OUT FROM UNDER HER ROCK TO POST THIS CHAPTER! IT'S WHAT YOU'VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR! I'M REALLY SORRY THAT IT'S TAKEN SIX MONTHS FOR YOU TO GET IT!  
> Okay! This is the third installment in the series and it'll span across The Winter Soldier, Avengers: Age of Ultron, Civil War, and probably beyond that. I'm waiting for Infinity Wars trailer so I can rub my hands together while I cackle and try to imagine how I can fit Quinn in the movie.  
> Obviously, this part of the series is going to be super duper heavy on the angst because. Well. Hydra are a great big bag of dicks. There will be fluff, though! Definitely some gross, sappy, reuniting smut. Also, Steve and Quinn are big married dorks. I'm also thinking about adding another person to the trio? I'm a lover of the Everyone is Poly Because Avengers tag, not gonna lie.  
> Anyway, I'll shut the hell up so you guys can finally read this thing. I want to shout out to [my Sweet Summer Child](http://www.thequernly.tumblr.com) because without this ray of sunshine my brain would explode from all the angsty headcanons and hundreds of AU ideas it comes up with every day.  
> I love you all and I hope you enjoy! As always, feel free to hit me up at [the story's Tumblr](http://www.quinnhayden.tumblr.com)!

Goddamn shower, that's all Quinn wants at this point and pretty much has been since the second her plane landed back in D.C. There's so much shit on her suit and, honestly, she doesn't know what most of the crud is and isn't sure she really _wants_ to know. There _is_ some blood on it—that much she's sure about. There's always blood on her these days, it seems. Anyway, she definitely needs to scrap the uniform, put in a request for a new one when she reports in tomorrow which she'll _have_ to do. She won't be able to skip out on this debrief. As leader of the team, she has to talk about this latest mission-slash-shit-storm. Maybe she could pull rank and make Rumlow handle the report and debrief. An excellent soldier he may be, but she thinks he's a real prick and she hates the way he stares after Steve—and her, if she's honest about it, but she's used to men and their leers by now. The point is that he's, as the kids put it these days, a creeper. 

A quick peek at her cell phone tells her that it's almost one in the morning when she finally makes it back home to the apartment. Before she does open the door, she makes sure to toe off her heavy boots as quietly as possible and lean down to pick them up. She hopes that'll help her sneak inside more effectively. Two years since he woke up from the ice and Steve doesn't sleep near as much as he should, super solider or not. Whenever she does try to call him out on the distinct lack of sleep, he tends to brush her off and say that it's the doctor in her that talks that way and worries too much, but _no_ , it's actually the person that loves him who fusses about his health. Still, she tries her hardest to be patient with him. Lord knows that she isn't the easiest to deal with, either—especially when it comes to her own physical or mental health. Live the kind of lives they do and a person is bound to have a problem or two. 

So, with that said, it isn't much of a surprise when she sneaks inside their apartment and Steve's stretched out on the couch, a book in hand. She's not too upset about it because she can tell he's at least _tried_ to fall back asleep since he has a blanket thrown over him and reads paper rather than stare at a tablet—because electronics make it harder to fall asleep and that's science, not some forties fear of the future or whatever else Tony has said in some attempt to debunk the fact and therefore not have to mind it any attention. 

As she drops her duffel at the door, Steve looks up at her and smiles warmly and…Jesus. Yeah, okay, she doesn't think she'll ever truly be used to the fact that she has someone to come home to now. She has actually tried to explain it to him, but she's not sure he can understand because it's so hard to put it in words. Every time, without fail, it puts her on cloud nine to walk in the door and see him there. "You, my dear husband, are supposed to be asleep," Quinn chides but there's a little smile on her face now, too. She strides over to stand next to the couch and lean down to kiss his forehead, but he tilts his head up so their lips meet instead. "Sweetheart," she breathes out and it's hard not to straddle him then and there on the couch, dirty uniform be damned. He doesn't even have to put in much effort at all to leave her breathless these days. Maybe she's started to turn a little sentimental in her nineties. "I missed you." 

Steve huffs a little in amusement, smiles a little wider, and then reaches up to tuck a piece of hair behind her ear. "Nat texted me when your plane landed. She said there was some trouble on your mission, but she wouldn't tell me anymore about it. It was hard to sleep after that," he explains. Then, he leans back and his eyes slide up and down her body, in a critical way, _not_ a sexy one—as if that'll actually solve the riddle of what happened on her mission. Nat's a little tattle-tale and loves to make Quinn squirm, so she rats her out to Steve whenever there's some kind of problem. "What happened?" 

Quinn makes a noise in the back of her throat. "Y'know, Nat wasn't even with me on this one. How's she find out about this shit so fast, huh?" Not even Clint was with Quinn and she doesn't think Nat particularly likes anyone on their team other than Quinn and Steve, so it wasn't like Nat would up and talk with them out of the blue. Or maybe she would. Quinn doesn't know, so whatever. She decides to let it be. Nat is Nat, after all. "Look, let me take a shower and I'll decide in there if I wanna tell you 'bout it or not." 

" _Quinn_ ," he tuts but doesn't sound too heated up or upset about it. He's learned not to push her to talk about the shit she really doesn't want to. Of course, it could be because he doesn't want to talk about emotions these days any more than she does. There used to be a time, way back when, that he'd poke and prod until she spilled the beans, but it's not like that no more. Who knew she'd actually miss those times? "Hey," he curls his hand around hers and tosses her a sheepish smile. "Mind if I come with you for that shower?" 

And he has the audacity to actually be shy about it. "Got your number, you hear me? Only reason you waited up was 'cause you wanted a piece of this ass. You only want me for my body, don't yah?" 

"In my defense, it is a really nice body." 

She snorts. "I appreciate the offer, I do, but I'm covered head to toe in every kind of nasty you can think up." His nose scrunches up and she nods in agreement. "Yeah, so how 'bout this? I'll take a shower and then I meet you back in bed where you can show me exactly how much you appreciate my body?" Just in case, she bends over and makes sure to kiss him within an inch of his life. 

"Sounds like a plan," he replies breathlessly and she winks at him before she sashays back toward the bathroom. Hopefully, his eyes are on her ass. Quinn likes to think she has a very nice ass. 

In the shower, Quinn tries to scrub down as efficiently yet as fast as enhanced humanly possible. Look, she won't lie here—the second she makes it back to that bedroom, she's about to jump his goddamn bones. Between the constant missions that SHIELD sends them on, they don't have much time for shit any more intimate than kisses and cuddles, and when they do have time, Steve's often not in the mood. Yet another issue she'll have to talk to him about some time because a low sex drive is definitely not a good sign, especially for people with a super enhanced sex drive. But—and this is definitely her lizard brain that talks now—it'll have to wait. She doubts he would even listen because he hasn't had the decades she's had to kick the notion that the only people who need therapists are the people who need to be locked up in an asylum.  

Quinn didn’t waste time before she hopped in the shower to run back and snatch some clothes from the bedroom because they wouldn't stay on anyway. As soon as she’s out of the shower, she wipes the excess water from her skin and dries out her hair so it doesn’t drip before she brushes it. Because she’s as much a tease as he is, she wraps back up in the towel and strolls back into the bedroom. Steve watches her with half-lidded eyes when she makes her appearance and he has his bottom lip between his teeth. She shoots him a sly smile before she drops her towel and moves forward to crawl onto the bed. She decides to kiss her way up his beautiful body and mouths at his half-hard dick through his cotton boxers. She only stays there a moment before she heads back up the rest of his body. She stops to kiss his sweet pink nipples and he makes a noise in the back of his throat. 

When Quinn does stop, her mouth hovers over Steve’s and she straddles his waist. Steve closes the space between their faces, nipping at her bottom lip before he traces it with his tongue. His hands move down to grab her ass and he forces her grind and rut against his hard cock. Quinn sighs with pleasure and pulls her lips away from his, tilts her head back, and ruts against him a few more times, chasing the pulses of pleasure. 

Steve leans forward to kiss her cheek, a bit of sweetness in an otherwise sensual moment. “I’ve missed you too, y’know,” he whispers into her ear and then presses another tender kiss to her scarred temple. “‘S nice to have you back home.” 

Oh, but he doesn’t even know how nice it is on her end to be home—to even have a home, because she didn’t for decades, not really. “Charmer,” she murmurs past the lump in her throat. She doesn’t want to ruin the mood they’ve already set, so she informs him, “You already have me naked and wet for yah. You don’t need to charm me any more to get in my pants. I’m a done deal.” 

He huffs in amusement. “Gentlemen like me don’t need reasons like that to treat their best gals nice. We do it ‘cause we want to.” That’s rich, coming from the man whose hands slide down her body the entire time he throws her that line. 

She narrows her eyes at him playfully. “My old man warned me about perverts like you, lurkin’ around for any chance to reach up a lady’s skirt—” she yelps when he slaps a hand across her bare ass. “You _asshole_ ,” she laughs and he laughs, too. 

“You're irresistible, baby. Just couldn’t help myself,” he teases and she knows it’s harmless when it comes from him, but she can’t quite fend off the brief discomfort when she hears it. Steve and Quinn have spent years with each other now, so Steve immediately zeroes in on it and his brows furrow. “Quinn?” But she tries to get their show back on the road and cuts him off with a desperate kiss. 

Like she said, they’ve had years with each other, so Steve unfortunately knows her tactics when she wants to avoid a conversation. He moans in frustration into her mouth, locks his arms around her waist, and Quinn gasps in shock when he quickly flips her on her back and switches their positions. Because he’s a dirty cheat, he straddles her waist now and pins her down with his thighs. 

“Quinn,” Steve starts slowly and frowns in disappointment. “What’s the matter?” She crosses her arms over her exposed chest and wonders if she can pout or cry her way out of this conversation since she can’t exactly make him think with his dick in this position. “This has to do with your mission, doesn’t it?” Aw, shit. He knows her too damn well. “It is, isn’t it? What happened?” 

So, Quinn is about to tell Steve about her mission after all. Just peachy. “Got someone new on the team, but you know that. You've met him,” she reluctantly starts. She wonders how she can phrase this and not have Steve freak out and put an end to the sex before they even started it. “I’ve tried to be nice to the kid since Rumlow and the rest of ‘em can be assholes and you can be a hard ass sometimes. I…shouldn’t have done that. Turns out he has a hands-on kinda approach and was too touchy-feely with me. Had the kid at my back and shit went sideways to our front and—a bullet only grazed my arm so it healed, but…” And how exactly can she put this next part in a not violent way? Oh, there is no way. “I confronted him about it and what he said to try and defend himself pissed me off even more. I lost my temper and put him on his ass and now he’s in the hospital because I knocked him out cold and broke…some stuff…” She smiles dryly. "To this day, people still think 'cause I have two soulmates that I'm some whore who'll bend over for anyone." 

Immediately, he leans down to press his forehead to hers and she closes her eyes at the touch of him. Jesus, he’s such a sweetheart. How’d she land a man like Steve as her husband? "You shouldn't have to deal with this at all, especially after all this time." He has that face on, she knows, the Captain America one—that, despite what most people would think, isn't all that sexy in the bedroom. She opens her eyes and, yeah, he has the look, but she can't hold back her warm smile. Protective fella that he is, he tells her, "Let me talk to Nick. I'll make sure that little asshole knows to keep his hands to himself from now on or else he won't have 'em anymore." 

"And this is why you're the only person I'll bend over for." She'll throttle anyone who tries to put a hand on her without her say-so, sure, but she doesn't take this as seriously as he does anymore. She's used to it, as sad as that is to say. Men have tried to fuck her since the day she came home from the war. A woman in power has always scared men, even now, and they think they can one-up her if they stick their dick in her. Steve is her sweetheart, hands down, but she doesn’t need him on this one. She has it taken care of. 

“Jesus, that’s awful,” says the person whose dick twitches in interest. “You’re awful. I swear to God your sense of humor didn’t use to be this bad. It wasn’t, was it?” When she smirks, she's proud to say that it's one of a true deviant. “What ‘m I supposed to do with you?”  

“Well, I’d tell yah to think about it, but since I’m about to suck your brains out through your dick, any higher cognitive functions may be sort of hard for you to manage.” she replies with the most innocent face she can muster and splays a hand across his chest—mostly because she wants to cop a feel of those beautiful, wonderful tits. Then, she shoves him away so she can get her legs around him enough to switch their positions back to how they were before. 

"Look, you really need to work on your delivery. That was about the un-sexiest shit I've ever heard come out of a person's mouth and we had to listen to Dum-Dum drop lines to ladies back in the war." He reaches out to take her face in his hands and frowns worriedly. "Seriously, Quinn, we don't have to do anything you're not in the mood for. I don't want to force you—" she sighs in exasperation because sometimes Steve can't take a hint. Also, he needs to not baby her, but she's too damn horny to start an argument right now—she's learned to pick and choose her battles, thank you very much.  

Quinn snatches his wrist and forces it down between their bodies, right into the center of her. He gets the point and slides a finger between her folds to gently rub at her clit and she shivers. "Feel how wet I am?” He rubs at the sensitive nub quicker and she moans. Can’t help but to grind down for a little more friction. “Dry as a desert down there. Nope, I'm definitely not in the mood at all," she teases breathlessly. He pulls his hand away and shoves his fingers into her mouth that had literally just been inside her. She groans at the taste and the forcefulness and then proceeds to make a show out of licking the wet off his fingers. She moves her mouth away after a minute or two and primly asks, "Now, can I suck your dick or what?" 

“A little decorum would be appreciated by a fella now and then.” 

“Okay, can I please suck your dick? Is that better?” 

“Since you asked so nicely…” 

She reaches down with one hand to run her nails down his chest, across a nipple, and he hisses in pleasure. “You’re lucky, Steve, that I need that fat mouth of yours later on to eat my pussy or else I’d have shoved a pair of my panties in it by now to shut you up.” She moves her hand back up to trace his bottom lip with her thumb and he sucks it in his mouth, showing off how damn good he is with that mouth when he’s not running it. 

“What a shame,” he taunts between kittenish licks. 

“Careful, sweetheart,” she purrs darkly. “It ain’t too late for me to change my mind. Keep talking shit and I’ll use you to get myself off like you’re my favorite sex toy and leave you achin’ for your own the rest of the night.” 

“Yes, ma’am.” 

She hums and leans down to peck him on the lips real quick. “Good boy,” she praises quietly before she starts to kiss her way back down his beautiful body. His boxers are tented and she quickly strips him out of them. When she finally has that nice, big cock of his out in the open, she licks from base to tip. Flicks her tongue out at the tip to collect the pre-cum that’s started to pearl and sighs in happiness. She’s missed doing this. Seriously, she has no room to talk about Steve. Quinn loves to have her mouth full as much as he does. 

Steve wraps one of his hands in her blonde hair when she finally takes him in her mouth. She thinks about if she wants to choke on it or not tonight, but she doesn’t want him to come too soon. He may be more rested than her, but she’ll crash soon…and okay that's not the real reason. She's too impatient to stretch this out that much. Also, she really wants him to come inside her. Wait. Why hasn’t she told him this yet? 

Quinn pulls her mouth and hand away for a moment to catch his attention. When Steve blinks down at her in confusion, she slowly strokes him with a hand, and starts to do what she does best which is run her mouth. “Been to the doctor recently, y’know.” Now he’s very confused about the turn of events, so she elaborates with, “I had my birth control replaced.” 

“ _Oh_ ,” he starts to say but it stretches out into a moan when she twists her hand on the upstroke and wraps her mouth around the tip for a second when her hand moves back down. 

“I don’t want you to come in my mouth, okay?” To be a shit-head, she opens her mouth, and gives him the pretty picture of his cock on her tongue. 

Steve whimpers and reaches to clench his hands in the sheets. “That doesn’t help the no coming situation, Quinn.” 

“I don’t want you to come in my mouth,” she repeats. She starts to kiss her way back up his torso. “I want to feel you,” she drawls. When she straddles his waist again, she leans down to nibble at his earlobe, and then whispers, “I want feel you, hard and hot, inside me. I want to ride you into this mattress. I want you to come inside me, Steve. I want you _drippin_ _’_ out of me.” 

“For fuck’s sake, Quinn,” he snaps and fists her hair in his hand again so he can tug her away and put his mouth around one of her nipples. “That _doesn’t fucking help_.” He squeezes her other tit with his free hand and she moans. “I think I need to shove some panties in _your_ filthy fuckin’ mouth.” 

Quinn, rather than up and bet him he couldn’t, snatches his wrists and forces them down to her hips. “Then who would beg for you to put your hands on me to help take away the stain that dirty little motherfucker left on me? Who’d cry for you to mark me up on the inside as much as the out? Who would ask you why you ain’t claimed what’s yours already?” 

Dirty talk works like a charm every damn time. Steve almost throws her on the floor in his mad scramble to put her on her back. He grabs her legs so hard she groans and hikes them up around his waist. He reaches down for his cock, positions himself at her entrance, and doesn’t even bother to take it slow. They both love it when it’s a little mean. 

“Fuck me, Rogers,” she demands and moves her hands around to run her nails across the wise expanse of his back. 

Steve doesn’t hesitate. He starts to pound into her and the brief pinch of pain from not having him inside her for longer than she wants to admit to starts to turn into pleasure. Her hands fly up to wrap around the reinforced bed frame and Steve’s hands move over hers. He knows how to angle himself just right so he brushes right across that spot inside that makes her snap her mouth shut and whine behind her teeth. 

“Steve, Steve, Steve,” she chants and tries to meet his every thrust, but then he slows down and moves to his knees. She pants and looks at him, but his eyes are cast down to where they're joined. He bites his bottom lip and watches his cock move inside her. Then, he rubs him thumb in little circles around her clit that make her gasp in pleasure and cause her thighs to shake. "Oh _God_ ," she whimpers. "Oh God, Steve, you’re gonna make me come." 

Steve, the smug bastard, smirks and leans back down to press his chest against hers. She throws her arms around his neck. He grinds slow, right up against her, and he's rubbing her clit on every thrust. He knows exactly how to fuck her right. It doesn't even take that long before she can start to feel the familiar curl of heat that starts low in her belly.  

"Let me have it," he purrs next to her ear and she shivers. The way he says it is all Brooklyn and it sets off some sort of Pavlovian response every time. She's so close that her toes start to curl. "Come for me, baby. Let me feel you." 

Quinn’s entire body locks up and her back arches when she comes. Warmth spreads out across her entire body and every nerve is lit up with pleasure. She’s hyper aware of his hands that clutch her hips and she turns her head to the side to gasp into the sheets because he doesn’t slow down. Pleasure morphs and becomes too sensitive, but _fuck_ , she loves it. 

“Give it to me,” she orders and moves her hands from his neck down to rake across his back again. “I want you to come in me,” she pleads. 

Steve’s done for after that. Not too many thrusts later and he shoves his face in the crook of her neck while his whole body locks up and he comes inside her. That last thrust is so hard that it pushes her up the bed and she almost hits the headboard. He moans loudly and she can’t help but mewl at the warmth she can feel spread inside her. 

A few quiet minutes pass where he continues to pant in exertion and Quinn makes her fingertips dance across his skin which makes him shiver because his nerves are all lit up, too. Then, voice muffled by her skin, she hears him ask, “Got anywhere to be tomorrow?” 

“Not now,” she answers with a breathless chuckle. It’ll take a few more orgasms before she’ll be tired enough to catch some sleep. “Got me all to yourself tonight, sugar.” 

\--- 

Out here, the wind is very nearly a predator, what with the way it howls and cruelly bites at her exposed skin. The skies are white, but that may be because snow pours down and what's already fallen is kicked up and thrown around by the fierce winds. There's so much snow—so much white that she could hardly see her body if she looked down, let alone see what's in the distance. Enhanced senses aren't worth a damn here and not even her hot body temperature can keep the cold at bay. She drops to her knees in the snow, suddenly overwhelmed, and wraps her arms around herself, desperate to hold in what little warmth she has left. She squeezes her eyes shut because the constant assault by the wind hurts them, too. Tears prick at the corner of her eyes, but they instantly freeze before they can move any more down her cheeks. 

In this God awful blizzard, Quinn can't hear. Can't see. Can't move. Hell, she can hardly even _breathe_. But she _has_ to stand back up. She has to _move_. She is so, _so_ close now, she knows it. She knows that she can save him this time. She's not some inexperienced kid way in over her head now. She's a super soldier now, for fuck's sake, and she needs to act like it. This pain from the cold, it can end, but the heartache never does. The life of her soulmate depends on this—on _her_. 

Then, as quick as it seems to have come, the snow suddenly…stops. The wind dies down, too. Bit by bit, the world starts to clear up and she can see. Still can't hear that much—not past the blood that rushes in her ears. Can’t exactly breathe, either, but that’s because of how fast her heart beats inside her chest, so hard that it hurts.  

Then, her heart starts to hurt for a whole other reason. Ahead of her, she can see that the bunker’s already been blown to smithereens—it's no more than a pile of smoke and rubble. Quinn hunches over and slams her clenched fist down in the snow. The heartache's so bad that it makes her shouts in pain, so loud that it echoes. Too late. Quinn was too damn late. Like always, when he needed her most, she couldn’t save him. 

" _Quinn_ ," comes a whisper and it's so low that she'd almost think it was the wind. It wasn't, though. She would know that voice anywhere. It was Bucky's voice. Soft. Full of warmth. Did he…did he make it out in time? 

When Quinn tilts her head back up, she can't hold back the sob. She covers her mouth with her hands and squeezes her eyes shut, but it's burned into her brain now. This time, her shame wants to stare her dead in the face. This is her punishment and she has to take it. So, she opens her eyes and stares down at Bucky's body, tears on her cheeks now. His body is literally so close that she can pull his head in her lap, which is what she does. His body isn't some charred like it should be after an explosion. If he wasn't so pale and cold, she'd almost think he was asleep. There's so much that she wishes she could say to him. She wants to bawl her eyes out and scream some more. But her mouth won't move anymore. The most she can do now is hunch over and press her forehead to his, rock back and forth with his body in her arms. 

"How selfish," someone sneers from above her and Quinn snaps her head up to see none other than Loki towered above her. "You let this man die a second time because you didn't want to confront your failure. You didn't want to save him because you couldn't accept that you've let him suffer all this time." She has to move. She has to keep this fucker away from her soulmate. Who knows what the fuck he could do to Bucky's body. Loki knocks his scepter on the ground once and there's a flash of blue that keeps Quinn rooted on her knees. "You killed Bucky." Loki moves his staff to touch Quinn's clenched palm and when she opens it, a detonator rolls out into the snow. Quinn stares at it in horror because no. No, no, no. She didn't do it. She would never do it. It _wasn't her fault_. 

"Everyone you dare to love dies. Do you realize that? Look at what you've done." Then, Loki motions behind Quinn. She looks over her shoulder and oh no. _Oh no_. That's not possible. But he's there. Steve's sprawled out in the snow, head turned toward her the same way Bucky's was. Crimson stains the white snow around him. Quinn tries to cover her mouth, but it's clenched around a knife. It drips blood. She throws it away as quickly as she can, as if that can take away what she's done here. "You are _death,_ " Loki reiterates and she can't believe it. She doesn't want to believe it. But it's true, isn't it? God have mercy on her soul, what the fuck has she done now? She's killed both her soulmates. "I will use you to make this world mine. You are _death_ , woman, and you will kneel before me." 

Loki’s arms suddenly wrap around Quinn from behind and, finally, a scream is ripped out of her throat— 

 

The second that Quinn's eyes snap open, she chokes on her scream and it immediately dies out. She raises up from the mattress, clenches the sheets in her fists, and looks around the room wildly. Her heart's in her throat and there's sweat on every inch of her skin despite how she's literally been so cold a few seconds before. She tries to pinpoint where Loki's at in the room. He's still here. This is another trick. And there is someone over in the corner—it's not him. It…it's _Steve_. She sucks in a sharp breath, doesn't let it out because she can't scare away the brilliant vision of him. She can't help but to reach a shaky hand out toward him. Steve…he's supposed to be dead, isn't he? This can't be real. Is this real? Fuck. What year is she in? She's so confused. 

" _Quinn_ ," he breathes out and scrambles to crawl back in bed next to her. "Hey, Quinn, baby, listen to me. It was only a bad dream." She shakes her head, covers her face with her hands, and starts to sob. It isn't real. "You're safe and you're here with me. I'm real. You're real. It was only a bad dream. Can I touch you?" She nods without a word. He doesn't overdo it immediately—only wraps his hand around hers. They've discussed this before, she thinks. They aren't supposed to be near each other when they have the real bad dreams. They've hurt each other by accident. That's…that's real, isn't it? "The year is 2013. We're both safe in our apartment in D.C." He brushes a kiss across her knuckles and she tries to think past her panic. Okay. Okay, she can touch him, so that makes him real. He won't up and vanish on her. "Do me a favor, Quinn, and describe somethin' in the room to me." 

Quinn stares down at their entwined hands and there's a tremor in her voice when she starts with, "I have…two rings on." He nods in encouragement and she has to think more than she should about where those rings actually came from. "One you proposed to me with and the other you put on me at our wedding. We were in front of the ocean." That seems so unreal, so bizarre, but she can feel the weight of the rings on her fingers. She focuses on that sensation. "You made a drawing and took it to the shop so they could make the engagement ring look exactly like the one your da proposed to your ma with because you're an old-fashioned, dorky sap." 

Steve chuckles and moves his mouth over her knuckles so he can kiss the diamond of said ring. "I'm sorry I wanted to keep it simple. And we both know you would've thrown a fit if I tried to make it any fancier than that." 

"Guess that's true," she murmurs and closes her eyes. Takes a deep breath. Curls her toes in the sheets. Sensation is always the key for the aftermath of this particular kind of storm. 

Steve's hands move up her arms and he rubs them which really, really helps make her start to feel warm again. She had no idea that she'd started to shake so much until he does that and she shakes a little harder than before. "You better now?" He checks. 

"Am I allowed to lie?" 

"You can," he answers slowly. "But I'd be disappointed if you did. And even if I didn't know that you want to lie, I'd probably still know because we've been married almost two years now." Her eyes drop and her vision blurs with tears. "Quinn, talk to me," he pleads quietly. 

"Do you think he hated me?" She looks back up at him, desperate. "It wouldn't be near as much as I hate myself, but do you think Bucky hated me when he died?" Steve's a worse liar than her, so she'll know the truth no matter what. 

Steve takes a deep breath and reaches a hand around to the back of her neck so he can pull her forward into his chest. "You want me to be honest?" She curls her hand in the front of his shirt. Buries her face in the crook of his neck and breathes him in before she nods. "There's no way Bucky would've known you were out there. I don't think the people who took him would've broadcasted the news that someone was on the way to save him." 

She's not sure if that's make her feel better. Nope. It doesn’t, actually. It hurts a fuck of a lot when she realizes that, too. "He died scared and alone then," she says through gritted teeth. 

"Because you're the most stubborn woman on the face of the planet, we would be here all day, back and forth about this,” Steve points out with a sigh. “You tell me I shouldn’t punish myself and I think you need to take your own advice here. You _tried_ , Quinn. You would’ve died to save him—you know that, I know that, and Bucky knew that, too.” 

“If life was the least fair to anyone, it was him. I hate that. The war took him away from us before his birthday, no less. He’d seen so much shit and dealt with even more, but he stayed sweet and kind. The world was mean to him, but he wasn’t ever to anyone else.” She has to swallow the lump in her throat before she can confess, “That day, I wish I would’ve kicked up more of a fuss to be on the train with y’all. It could’ve been me instead of him.” 

“Yeah,” Steve breathes out and wraps his arms around her. “Yeah, I wish it would’ve been me instead of him, too.” Now his voice starts to waver. “And, yeah, he deserved to be happy. The war took him too soon.” 

“I miss Bucky,” she sobs. 

“I miss him, too. Fuck, I miss him so much some days I can't breathe with it." 

Quinn leans away to sniffle and wipe at her wet eyes. Suddenly, she chuckles but it's wet and bitter. "Seventy years later—you'd think I would've learned to not cry about it anymore. You'd think that I would've learned to deal with it by now." 

“Love and loss don’t have an expiration date.” 

Between the two of them, if anyone is more aware of that fact, it's her. What she'll never say is that, sometimes, she wishes it did. It would've caused a lot less heartache over the years. "I'm sorry I ruined the nice time we were havin'," she decides on rather than talk about Bucky anymore. 

"The fun ended a few hours ago. We were asleep," he jokes. Then, he kisses her forehead. "We both know that I have more bad dreams than you. I think you're entitled to a bad dream here and there." She bumps her forehead on his shoulder once. "I love you, Quinn, no matter what." 

"Love you, too," she mumbles into his skin before she leans away. "I think I need to run for a little bit. I…don't think I can sleep anymore today. I'm startin' to itch to move around, y'know?" She can feel the buzz start up under her skin.  

"Oh. Do you need me to come with you?" 

"No," she answers quietly. "No offense, but I kinda want to be alone for now. Besides, you couldn't keep up with me. I'm too fast for you, old man." 

Steve rolls his eyes. "Ha. Ha. You're hilarious," he drawls sarcastically. "You're not _that_ much faster than me." 

"SHIELD tests say otherwise." He pouts at her and she smiles a little. "You need me to pick up anything on my way home later on?" 

"Starbucks?" 

She snorts. "You need an intervention for your sugary caffeine addiction." 

"Better than that sludge we had back in the war," he retorts. "Tell you what, I'll have an intervention for it when you have an intervention for your chocolate addiction." She pauses on her way to the closet and he chuckles. "Yeah, that's what I thought." 

"Shut up." 

\--- 

In Quinn's defense, she played an active role in both the Red Scare and the Cold War. Of course, she's nowhere near the same level of spy-ness that, say, Natasha's on, but that doesn't mean she hasn't picked up some habits over the years. So, if she's happened to follow— _not_ stalk—Steve on some days he runs and notices that he's always a little cheery with a particular person then that's definitely not her fault. Like she said, she had to deal with McCarthy, for fuck's sake. 

What Quinn has absolutely no shame about is her protectiveness over Steve. People these days, they're always so star struck over Steve. No one takes the time to actually know the man underneath the uniform and she hates that. Steve deserves so much better than that. Obviously, Steve's noticed it way before her, but Steve is Steve and loves to let people have the benefit of the doubt. There have been who have moseyed on up to Steve, stars in their eyes, only wanted him for the fame, and…well, Quinn didn't appreciate it. 

Some people would call Quinn paranoid, but she has every reason to be. So, she needs to see who this man is up close and personal. Steve's a shy person, so she knows damn well he hasn't made any moves other than taunt the poor man on his runs around the National Mall. She's planned to do this for a week or two now, but she had the mission. Her bad dream only so happened to be a decent excuse for her to be out and about. 

Quinn, unlike Steve, doesn't usually flaunt her enhanced skills out in public unless she absolutely has to—or if Steve is particularly cocky or has pissed her off for some reason or another. People tend to stare when she puts on the super speed and she doesn't have as much of an exhibition kink as Steve does. So, when she zeroes in on the mystery man, she slows her pace to a crawl and steps in line beside him. He's probably almost done. She had a late start. 

Up close and personal, Quinn realizes that he's definitely a looker. Rich, dark skin. When he tries to hide a smile of disbelief, there's a flash of his teeth and he has a cute little gap in his front teeth. She also tries to be polite and _not_ stare at his ass, but it's very, very nice. He also has some muscle on him. And—oh. Former military is written all over the line of his body—and on his sweatshirt, too. Well, it's a no wonder Steve considered him so approachable to start with. 

Quinn can be shy sometimes still, but it's nowhere near as bad as it used to be. She doesn't skitter around the way Steve does. "Quinn Hayden," she introduces. 

"Kind of already knew that, but nice to meet you, Quinn Hayden. I'm Sam Wilson," he teases and introduces all in one. "So, are you here to run your chops until I cross the finish line? Your boyfriend usually does it while he passes me by." 

"If I actually _ran_ , you wouldn't see me." 

"So you're here because…?" 

"I woke up earlier than usual for me and needed to stretch." Technically, it's the truth. 

Sam hums and watches her out of the corner of his eye. "Where's that boy of yours today then?" 

"At home," she answers. "We don't have to be _everywhere_ with each other, y'know." 

He raises his hands in defense and chuckles. "Hey, I never said you had to be. Just surprised that he's not here to rub the super speed in my face like he usually is." 

"Super speed is too nice. He doesn't have super speed." Sam's brows raise and she smiles slyly. "Look, if you want to put it in perspective, compared to me, Steve's a…uh, jackrabbit whereas I am a cheetah." 

"Why aren't you here to rub that in his face more often?" The two of them laugh and Sam adds, "Seriously. Please come with him next time. Someone needs to put him in his place." 

"Yeah, well then he'd push the whole bulldozer fiasco in my face and no one wants to hear about that." 

"Bulldozer," Sam repeats incredulously.  

"Bulldozer," she confirms and because she's a shit-head too, she doesn't elaborate on it any further. "So, Sam, where yah from?" 

"Harlem," he answers slowly. 

"Kentucky." 

"Kind of already knew that, too." 

Right. The whole soulmate of Captain America and all that. Quinn sighs. "You ever wish your life _wasn't_ a Wikipedia article?" 

"Man, I _wish_ I knew what that was like." He pauses. "I actually only know what was in Josephine DuPont's book. Well, and what they broadcast on the news. Okay, I may've watched a few documentaries here and there when I had some extra time on my hands. Look, I haven't looked at the Wikipedia article." 

She squints at him. "Huh. Here I was sure you'd be a Captain America fanboy." 

"Actually a Gabe Jones fanboy, but anyone that sat in a public school classroom in America has had a whole week dedicated to Captain America and the Commandos." 

Point to Sam. "Touche."  

"And when March Madness season rolls around, there's at least one Quinn Hayden poster on the Kentucky side of the arena. Not sure who has more Captain America merch—Brooklyn or Kentucky." 

"It wasn't always that way," she comments. "I'm only popular because of what happened in New York. You bash in some alien skulls and then all of a sudden you're hot shit. Did you know that I have to pretty much drive to Kentucky now when I want to see my family? No matter how shitty I try to make myself look, someone always pinpoints me at the airport. I _hate_ the drive down to Kentucky. It takes _forever_ and all there is to see is West Virginia. Well, not now since we're in D.C. Now, it's Virginia." 

"Wow. Tell me how you really feel." 

Her cheeks start to heat up. "Sorry. I didn't mean to rant—" 

"It wasn't a complaint. You're more than welcome to vent." 

"You shouldn't say that all willy-nilly now. I can bitch a lot about some of the shit Steve does alone that pisses me off." 

"Dude, I would love nothing more than some dirt on Steve Rogers." 

Quinn comes to a stop and smiles sheepishly, a little hopefully. "We could start with his Starbucks order?" 

"Oh man. Is it that bad?" 

"Why don't you come with me and decide for yourself?" 


	2. Quinn Rogers and the Extremely Long Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It seems like the whole world is standing in Quinn's way, but that's never stopped her before and it sure as hell won't now.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alternative chapter name: _Quinn Rogers Has Some Conspiracy Theories_.  
>  I actually don't really have much to say about this chapter. Uh, it's the start of the conspiracy thriller vibe that _The Winter Soldier_ sets. Also, there's a new original character introduced! Her name is Charlotte, but she's actually the brain child of [ my Sweet Summer Child](http://thequernly.tumblr.com)! I hope that you love her as much as I do.  
>  I also hope that you enjoy the chapter! Much love to you all! <3

Bad. 

Bad, bad, bad, bad, _bad_. 

This is a very bad idea and it isn’t like that’s necessarily new for Quinn because she can be chuck full of those at times, but this one may actually take the cake for the most terrible idea ever—and that does, in fact, include the France fiasco back in the war. Oh, and where did the inspiration for this spectacularly bad idea come from? Why, her bad dream, of course. 

For God’s sake, it was a bad dream. There’s no more to it than that. Like Steve told her, love and loss don’t have an expiration date. Trauma doesn’t, either. A lot has happened to Quinn over her many years—what went down in Hazard, the loss of her soulmates, combat in various wars, and she’s been brainwashed to top the shitty sundae off. That shit sticks around in a person’s brain and sometimes it rises to the surface whether she’s conscious of it or not. This terrible idea is the result of her bad dream and for the sake of her sanity, she needs to not dwell on this anymore. 

Seriously, there's no point to this. This is completely and utterly useless. Not to mention that this is probably wildly inappropriate too, because what she wants to do…she basically wants to kick up the dust that's settled over the nearly seventy years that've passed since that awful day. She should let the dead have some damn peace—especially her soulmate. Out of everyone, he deserves it the most. And anyway, she can't skulk around and then hide it away if she fucks up and made a bad call. There are at least two people she needs permission from to do this—okay, technically she only needs Becca's permission since Becca is his only next of kin but Quinn will always ask Steve what his opinion is, so yeah. Basically, if this turns out bad then everyone and their momma will know about it. Everyone and their momma that matters to her, anyway. Jesus, why can't she let the dead stay dead?  

Except…dead may not be as dead as she thinks and Steve's the actual physical proof of that. A few months after the Battle of New York, there was a moment when it sunk in that Steve wouldn't vanish on her the way he always had in her bad dreams. That he was there to _stay_. It must've been that exact second that the seed was planted—the seed of doubt or hope, she's not sure what to label it. Shit, it could probably be considered both. Doubt that the body that rests underneath the headstone _James Buchanan Barnes_ is actually that of her soulmate. Hope that somewhere out there, his heart beats steady and true. Fuck. Maybe that tiny seed has always been there, buried deep down inside her heart. 

Of course, if there was any kind of a bloom in her heart from that seed, there have been plenty of people to stomp it back down. It probably makes her a terrible person, but she's done it herself, too. The implication of this alone would be—there aren't any words to describe the horror because he'd been captured and to leave him all alone for so many years in the hands of those bastards… _God_. And set that aside, it simply isn't possible. This isn't the same with Steve's mark that went dark suddenly one day. How could Bucky's heart stop, sometimes _decades_ at a time, and then start back up? Sure, near the end, Bucky _and_ Quinn started to see effects of Zola's serum on their bodies, and the serum can do wonders, but it can't do that…can it? Steve was preserved in that ice, so maybe…no. Jesus, she doesn’t know anymore. 

 This whole time, Quinn and everyone else blamed the serum on her bad marks. The nasty shit's always been the root of most of her other problems, anyway… _but—_ and this is where the doubt comes in, by the way—that doesn't make as much sense as it did before, either. Technically, Steve's mark on her body has never since lied. It was faded when he was near dead in the ice and then it was there when he woke up and it hasn't ever been any different. Lately, she's started to stare at her marks hard, every damn day, to try and see if there's some kind of difference in the color, but there's not. So what is it then? Is only one half of her body defective? There'd be more problems than her marks if that were the case, wouldn't there? Hell, the serum's always worked _too_ well rather than the other way around. Would there really be only this one problem?  

At the start, they told her it was her emotions from the losses of her soulmates that put her mark on the fritz. Grief, fury, stress—such extreme emotions can fuck with a person’s body, so why wouldn’t that mean soul marks, too? Then, time passed and she healed the best she could, but her mark persisted. When emotions couldn’t be the root of the problem anymore, they finally blamed it on the serum. Here lately, she's started to think that maybe she shouldn't have rolled over and accepted it as the truth.  

This could probably be considered one of her dumbest stunts, but she _has_ to make sure. She has to settle this once and for all. This'll be the closure she's needed since that horrible day when she was so close to Bucky before it literally blew up in her face. She's told herself that she's accepted it, but then his mark turns dark and no matter how much time it's been, she always asks herself the same question— _what if I fucked up?_   

\--- 

Quinn decides that before she even kicks up a fuss and pulls Becca and Steve into this needlessly, she'll look at that old report. Maybe it can offer her some kind of closure? She's actually never looked at it since it was written. After those charred tags were put in her hands, she let Peggy handle it all. Besides, she'd been propped up in bed to recover from the explosion, so no time to write. Quinn told her side of the story and started to mourn the loss of Bucky a second time.  

At the Triskelion, Quinn does actually try and use her rank to make Rumlow handle debrief, but since she did technically put a man on her own team in the hospital, Nick demands her presence. Business ethics or some shit, he tells her. Maybe the little asshole that put his hands on her should've had some ethics of his own and they wouldn't be in this little predicament to start with. For a second, she debates on whether or not she should use the seniority card on Nick—since she can't use rank because they're both on the same alpha level—but that man's almost as stubborn as her and wouldn't let her have a moment of peace if she didn't show up. It'd probably be the best anyway because who knows how bad Rumlow would make her look. Debrief is painful, but that's not actually unusual. She's never much cared for them, but that's because she hates to spend hours and hours in one place at a time.   

 _Finally_ , Quinn makes it to her own personal private office and both locks the door behind her and shuts the blinds so no one can spot her and bother her some more. When she plops down at her desk, it dawns on her that she'll have to search deep, deep, _deep_ in the dark depths of SHIELD's databases and stares at her computer warily. SHIELD's become real meticulous about their reports, so they've scanned all the old ones into the computer _plus_ the reports that've been made since their systems modernized. Basically, it'll be nearly seventy years of SSR/SHIELD shit she'll have to look around in. Jesus, Tony has spoiled her rotten because Jarvis would be able to find the report in a heartbeat. She has to convince herself _not_ to break out her phone and Jarvis because SHIELD's IT would shit a brick if some outside system broke into theirs. 

It takes _hours_ that are chuck full of blood, sweat, tears, a lunch date with the nurses on duty, and a whole bunch of trips outside the office so she doesn't spontaneously combust from the sheer boredom of it all before Quinn pinpoints the sneaky little bitch of a report. Thank God she found it when she did because a few more minutes later and she would've brained herself on the desk. After the first hour mark, her mood had drastically and steadily dropped and now she's plain old pissed off. 

 **ACCESS DENIED**   

Okay, so it looks like she'll be pissed off for a little bit more.  

She has to place her hands flat on the desk and take deep breaths so she doesn't literally punch her computer and smash it to pieces. Because, seriously, why the _fuck_ is her access denied all of a sudden? She and Steve are the only two people that use this particular computer and she's pretty positive that she punched in her username to access the database. Huh. Well, maybe she didn't pay as much attention as she thinks she did. Fine. She'll break out the old alpha level status and override the denial.  

 **USER OVERRIDE: QUINN E HAYDEN**   

 **PASSWORD: **********   

  

 **USER OVERRIDE DENIED**  

" _What the_ _hell_?" Quinn wishes this machine would understand how close it is to death. Mother fucker, she completely understands the aversion Liam, Dum-Dum, and Gabe have to any smart machinery. And by smart she means useless as hell. She tries her username and password a second time, keeps her eye on the keyboard to make sure she doesn't mess up in any way, shape, or form. "Are you _serious_?" Another stupid access denied screen. Fine. Maybe someone updated her username in the system while she was away and didn't tell her about it. God knows she and Steve have had a lot of chats about her last name since they eloped.  

 **USER OVERRIDE: QUINN E HAYDEN ROGERS**   

 **PASSWORD: **********   

  

 **USER OVERRIDE DENIED**  

"I'm five seconds away from puttin' my foot up someone's ass," she mutters darkly under her breath. There's one last variation of her name that she can try because in the public eye she's still Quinn Hayden but on paper she's officially taken her husband's name. It didn't matter how much Steve said she didn't have to. She's old-fashioned in some ways still. The people at SHIELD who dealt with all the paperwork and updated her files and shit know about it.  

Well, third time's the charm…  

 **USER OVERRIDE: QUINN E ROGERS**   

 **PASSWORD: **********   

  

 **USER OVERRIDE DENIED**  

…or not.  

What the fuck is up with the system today? There's absolutely no reason whatsoever for her to be locked out this way. She said it once and she'll say it a second time, she has _alpha level clearance_. If she wanted to, she could literally look at whatever information she wanted to. Clearance wise, there is no one else above her—only beside or underneath her. There's no one that could lock her out this way.  

 **CASE FILE LOCKED BY USER ARNIM ZOLA**   

" _What_?" That can't be possible. Seriously, it isn't possible. Sure, SHIELD's always pretty much been ahead of everyone else when it comes to systems, machines, and tools, but that little rat bastard died around the same time that _floppy disks_ were invented. The only reason he should be in the computer is as a mention in damn reports. He shouldn't be able to _lock her out_. Dead nearly forty years and Zola can _still_ be a pain in her ass.  

Really, a person would think that she would stop by now, but now she wants to partly do it because she's petty as fuck and she'll happily do whatever she can to piss on Zola's ashes. So, before she shuts it down, she snarls at the computer, "Fine. Have it your way, you piece of shit. You can't block me from a paper file, now can you?" Great. She's so pissed off and fed up now that she's started to talk to inanimate objects.

Quinn storms out of her office and people physically make room for Quinn when she steps into the elevator and snaps out her destination of, "Records." She can't exactly blame anyone because there's murder plain as day on her face. Or it's because she and Steve have turned into SHIELD celebrities. It could honestly be one or the other or both.  

Rumlow, however, when he saunters onto the elevator after it stops a few floors down, is more than happy to sidle up close to her. He's never ever touched her because unlike the newbie asshole on this last mission, he doesn't have a death wish. He knows that she'd put him in the hospital. But he doesn't have to necessarily touch her to make her uncomfortable, and that irritates her even more because she can't put him in his place because of the way he _looks_ at her. "Doc," he croons.  

"Rumlow," she tosses back cooly and hopes he'll leave it at that.  

Either Rumlow's too naive to notice her bad mood or doesn't care because he decides to start up a conversation. "Got another new kid to replace the one that's in the hospital. Me and the rest of them team are headed down to break him in. You down?"  

"Maybe another time," she dismisses dryly. "I have some other business I need to take care of today."  

He's not so stupid to blatantly leer, but she can see it in his eyes when he teases, "Cap this other business you have to do?" Her jaw clenches and he immediately backs down. Chuckles and throws up his hands in surrender. "Sorry. Inappropriate, I know. Should've kept that in the locker room, huh?" Her lips purse and he tries to wheedle her some more. "But seriously, what's so important?"  

The elevator crawls to a stop and he raises a brow at her when he sees what floor they're on. Quinn bitchily informs him, "I'd love to tell you, but it’s classified, Rumlow." To hit the point home, she quickly adds, "Alpha level clearance." She doesn't look at him on her way out but she can feel his eyes on her as the elevator doors shut. "Dick head," she whispers under her breath. 

It has…definitely been some time since she's been to the records room. The sheer size of the room almost makes Quinn break down in tears of frustration and turn around and book it out of there. Piss on Zola's ashes, she reminds herself. Plus, there's also someone here that works at the main desk and hopefully knows the records layout like the back of their hand. Quinn takes a deep breath and tries to shove her bad mood to the side because the poor woman deserves that much. She can't help that Quinn's had to deal with idiotic computers and asshole teammates today. She looks fresh out of the academy, too, and Quinn's almost had a soft spot for the baby-faced ones. 

Quinn spots the name Robertson on the other woman. "What can I do for you today, Doctor Hayden?" Quinn can literally see the stars in Robertson's eyes and tries to not squirm underneath the attention. She still doesn't understand why women look up to her so much. There are definitely better role models out there.  

"I wanted to look for a real old case. Oh, and when I say old, I mean _old_. And, uh, my computer won't cooperate with me, so I couldn't look it up that way. So, I came down here to hunt it down and hoped you could maybe help me?" Quinn explains meekly and then holds out a piece of paper that she wrote the case number down on because at least the computer told her _that_ much. "You probably know your way around more than me."  

"Doctor Hayden, I would be more than happy to help you," she chirps as she takes the paper from Quinn. She quickly punches the case number into the computer. "Let me see if I can pull up where it's at in here." She hums and types some more, clicks a few times. "Oh. There it is—" there's a flicker on her face. Uncomfortable or taken aback or maybe even nervous? Robertson recovers, but when she smiles up at Quinn, it's a lot more forced than before.  

What in the Sam Hill is up with everyone today? Immediately on the defense now, Quinn eyes Robertson warily and questions, "There some kind of a problem?" 

"Yes," Robertson blurts and winces after. "I'm sorry." Then, she clears her throat. "I…definitely didn't expect it to be _that_ old. _Wow_. I mean, this was written back in the, um—the _forties_. This must've been back when SHIELD—"   

"—was the SSR," Quinn finishes for her. "Yeah, I know." In her many, many years, she's learned how to spot a liar and Quinn knows damn well that Robertson isn't surprised by how old the report is. "But I know we keep 'em around."  

"It may not be in the best shape," Robertson warns.  

"I know that too, honey." It sounds a whole lot like Robertson doesn't want Quinn to see this report, but she has no idea why Robertson do that. Jesus Christ, it's only an old report. It isn't like it has that sensitive of information written in it, either. "Look, if I can't see it then I can't see it, but I'd like to at least try. If you're busy, you can always point me where I need to—"  

"No, no, no, of course not. I'll take you to where it's at. It would be so rude of me to leave you on your own that way. All I need to do is find someone to come cover the desk. It'll definitely take some time for us to find this." Robertson types on her keyboard real quick before she stands to her feet and waves toward the direction of the shelves. "Follow me, Doctor Hayden." 

\--- 

Well, Robertson didn't kid around when she said it would take some time for them to locate this pesky son of a bitch. Quinn had to strip out of her business suit jacket, roll up the sleeves of her white button-up blouse, and kick off her heels. Guess it works out in her favor that some heavy boxes aren't all that heavy to a super soldier. She's about to throw in the towel, say SHIELD IT techs be damned, and let Jarvis try and sneak past whatever blocked her access from the computer file. 

Quinn's on the ladder, another useless box under her arm, when she hears someone call out from below her. "Doctor Hayden." Quinn looks down between her feet to see…Alexander Pierce? "Good afternoon." Quinn is extremely confused now. What in the hell made him climb out of his tall tower to come see her? "You mind if we have a word?" 

She looks dead ahead and the shelves and her eyes roll so hard they almost fall out of her skull. This is why she hates to be at headquarters so much. All it ever is anymore is _Doctor Hayden this_ and _Doctor Hayden that_. All she wants to do is find this report, take it home, and cuddle up with Steve after, but it seems like no one wants her to do that today.  

She takes a deep breath to cool down her temper before she throws herself down from the ladder since it isn't that much of a drop. Robertson squeaks in surprise but Pierce only smiles and chuckles. "Secretary Pierce," she acknowledges while she dusts off her pencil skirt. "What'd I do to make you come see little old me?" 

"Have you had lunch yet?" 

Quinn doesn't have the patience to deal with the runaround anymore today. "Already had a bite with some of the nurses," she answers. "So, what can I do for you?" 

Pierce shoots a look over at Robertson before his eyes move back over to Quinn. So, it's that kind of business then. "How about a walk by the river then? I think we could both use a stretch and some fresh air, don't you think?" 

"Sure," she replies and bites back the venom she so desperately wants to lace the word with. She really wants to call it a day and head back home to Steve. "Robertson." Said woman snaps to attention. "If you find that report, have someone drop it off at my office, okay?" 

"Yes, ma'am," Robertson stutters out and her eyes flicker to Pierce before she heads up the ladder herself. 

\--- 

Quinn doesn't and never really has had much of a relationship with Alexander Pierce. He's the direct link between the World Security Council and the director of SHIELD which Quinn has never been, so she's never really had occasion to talk with him. Once Nick was behind the wheel, it didn't take too much more time before Pierce came in after. Nick's a lot closer to Pierce than Quinn's ever been. She can say, with confidence, that she could probably count on her hands how many times she's actually spoken with Pierce since his tenure with SHIELD started. 

So, she feels like her shock is completely understandable when Pierce swoops in to steal her from the records room and make awkward small talk on the elevator trip down to the Potomac. As soon as they start to stroll down the sidewalk parallel to the river, he finally comes clean about what he really wants to talk about with her. "I hear there was a problem on your latest assignment." 

Surely to God _that_ isn't the reason he came to talk to her. "There was a problem," she starts slowly and watches him out of the corner of her eye warily. "I handled it the best way I could in that kind of a situation." 

"You put one of your men in the hospital, Doctor Hayden," he points out calmly. 

"I said it was the best way _I_ could handle it. I never said it was the best way someone else would've handled the situation," she drawls wryly. "Why'd you want to talk to me about this, anyway? Did you want to make sure I wouldn't sue SHIELD for sexual harassment or what?" 

He shakes his head. "No. I'm well aware that you've spent so much time in this business and you know how to deal with these kinds of situations." Okay. Well then why the hell did he want to talk with her? "I only wanted to meet with you in person and say how sorry I am that this happened." 

"Like you said, I've dealt with this before." He literally could've sent an email and she would've been fine with that. She can't hold it in anymore and blurts out the question, "Is this really why you wanted to see me? This really isn't that important. Unless you want to rip me a new one for _my_ misconduct and if you do then you should know that Nick's already beat you to the punch on that one." 

"Of course he has," Pierce remarks amusedly. "Sorry to disappoint you, but I'm not here to lecture you. I really did want to check up on you." 

"Oh. Uh, thank you? But, really, you didn't have to do this." She blinks and then squints at him. "Steve didn't put you up to this, did he? I told him not to kick up a fuss about this." 

"I have yet to meet or speak with your husband, but you can let him know I'd be honored for him to drop by my office sometime. My father served in the one-hundred and first airborne division, you know." Pierce slows to a stop and turns to stare at Quinn with a frown. "Whether or not you're used to this kind of treatment, it shouldn't still happen to you. You deserve respect. The kind of behavior you dealt with, that's part of the old world. It won't be tolerated here." 

Alarm bells start to blare in Quinn's head and she realizes that this conversation isn't about sexual harassment anymore. "Thank you," she murmurs absentmindedly while she tries to understand what's hidden underneath his words. "There are some old world ideas that aren't so bad. Chivalry, for one." 

"I have to say, I'm surprised by you, Doctor Hayden. Here I was sure that it'd be your husband that would be the sentimental one. I always assumed you were the more modern one between you two." 

"Who decided sentimental was bad? This may be hard for some people to believe, but the past wasn't awful _all_ the time. People have always found happiness in whatever era they're in. Besides, what happened in the past teaches us lessons for tomorrow." She waves toward the Triskelion that looms over them. "After the war, there were so many of us hurt, and I was one of those people. That pain was a lesson for me and it was the kick in the ass I needed to come up with the idea for SHIELD." 

"Point taken," he concedes. There's a notification from the cell phone in his pocket and he takes it out to sneak a peek at the screen. "I hope that one of these days I'll have a whole hour to myself." 

"Maybe when you're dead." 

"I'm not sure it'd happen even then." 

"Like I said before, thanks for the reminder that chivalry isn't dead. I'll also make sure to let my husband know you'd appreciate he make his presence known." She looks down at her own cell phone to check on the time. 

"Headed back to your office?" Pierce inquires. 

"No. I think I'll drop by records. I don't think Robertson's found that report yet. Didn't seem like we were anywhere near it when you came for me," she muses. "Where're you headed? Your office?" 

"I have to meet with Senator Stern, I'm afraid," he answers dryly. It seems like pretty much anyone that's come in contact with that particular senator from Pennsylvania thinks he's an enormous asshole. How he's stayed in office, especially after the fiasco with Tony's armor and Justin Hammer, she doesn't know.  

"Good luck with that. You'll need it." 

"The same to you. What's so important that you've had to tear records apart?" 

She rubs the back of her neck. "It wasn't my choice, trust me. Damn computer is busted, I think. Anyway, I was curious and wanted to see an old report. It isn't that important. Guess I have too much time on my hands these days and want to reminisce." 

"Make sure you don't spend too much time in the past, Doctor Hayden," he warns, casual as can be. "Good to talk with you, by the way. We should do it more often. I'll have to tell Nick to keep you here at home more." 

Quinn bites back the comment that she desperately wants to say which is that she’s actually extremely happy she doesn’t seem him that often. What she tells him instead is, “Well then that means I’d see a lot less of my husband.” Her hatred of political bullshit aside, Pierce reminds her too much of Rumlow, actually. Predatory, that’s probably the best word to use for the both of them. They’re both insidious underneath the surface and it makes her skin crawl. Rumlow is easier to see than Pierce is and that makes him worse than Rumlow. You see a threat and you can duck out of the way. And what in the fuck was up with that whole old world, new world shit anyway?  

God, she needs a drink that can actually put a dent in her metabolism. Why the fuck did she come back to SHIELD? Oh, because her husband’s sense of duty is so ridiculous that she had to follow after him and make sure he didn’t end up killed because of it. She’s already been a widow once and she’s not keen to repeat the experience, thanks. Not to boast, but she may actually be the best wife in the history of the universe and Steve should be totally honored to have her around. 

\--- 

There’s a man behind the main desk that hadn’t been there before when Quinn pushes open the door to the records room. She assumes that it’s the person Robertson asked to come cover the desk while she and Quinn were buried balls deep in old boxes and reports. He opens his mouth to probably ask what she needs help with, but Quinn skips the pleasantries and barrels past him without a word to hunt down Robertson. And Robertson…is absolutely nowhere to be found when Quinn makes it back to where they’d been before Pierce came to kidnap Quinn. There is someone back there, but it’s a completely different woman, and all she does is clean up the boxes that Quinn and Robertson had left all over the place. 

Quinn heads back further, deeper into the shelves and the past of SHIELD, to see if Robertson maybe ended up somewhere else, but there’s only one other person on the floor. To Quinn’s confusion, it’s…Rollins. Another member of the STRIKE team that she and Steve head up now. It makes no sense that he’d be up here because, with his position on the team, there’s absolutely no reason he would need to be in records. The paperwork is handled by Steve and Quinn now. 

As Rollins passes her by to leave, he politely nods and acknowledges her with a curt, “Doctor Hayden.” He leaves it at that and she’d normally appreciate that, but she’s confused—and a little suspicious, if she’s honest about it. She looks over her shoulder to watch him as he disappears. Empty-handed, she notices. Also coincidental that he’s here when Rumlow said he and the team wanted to break a new teammate in. Whenever Rumlow is around, Rollins is usually never far behind. 

Definitely time to leave the office for the day, she decides as she takes a deep breath and scrubs a hand across her face. She turns around and heads back to the main desk. The man—Dawson, his badge declares—smiles up at her, but waits for her to talk. “Excuse me, but do you know where Robertson ran off to?” 

“Oh.” Dawson blinks. “I’m sorry, Doctor Hayden, but Robertson’s not here anymore. Just missed her, actually. She’s punched out for the day.” 

Isn’t that _perfect_? “Did she leave a report behind?” Quinn rubs her forehead—muscle memory from when she was physically capable of a headache. “Or do you know if she by any chance dropped a report off at my office?” 

“It was the old report, wasn’t it?” Quinn nods and assumes that Robertson told Dawson about it before she went home. “She planned to send an email to you tomorrow when she came in, but since you’re here I can let you know. Um. So, Robertson is so, so sorry about this, but she couldn’t find the report you needed.” _What?_ “Kind of ironic that she’ll probably have to file some paperwork about this slip and it’ll probably end up back in here.” Dawson sees that she’s not impressed with the poorly timed humor and clears his throat. “Unfortunately, the older a report is, the more likely it is to end up lost. SHIELD has evolved so much and moved around over the years and—I’m sure you understand.” 

How nice to know that Quinn's whole day has been a complete and total waste. This is insane. "Does this happen a lot?" Because she's always been under the assumption that the people who deal with paperwork of SHIELD are real meticulous. 

There's a pause from Dawson and Quinn watches his eyes dart away while he thinks. Finally, he looks back at her, and finally answers her with a forced, "You'd be surprised." He starts to fiddle with the pen on his desk and adds, "I'm sorry, ma'am, but we're only human. Mistakes happen." 

Sure they do, she thinks sourly, but not in this department. Same as Robertson, this man lied to her face. That's the reason why he can't sit still, why he won't look her in the eye, why he has to pause to think up an answer. Since everyone in records is dedicated to lie to her today and waste her time, it looks like she has no more business here, and turns around to leave without another word. 

 

On the elevator ride back up to her office, Quinn watches the streets below that are packed with rush hour traffic, and she thinks hard about what would've happened if the report actually was found. Would Quinn have even accepted that report as the truth? When she thinks about it, the answer is probably no, she wouldn't have. 

Quinn is probably the worst person on the face of the planet, but the only way her brain can be convinced is by science. Science is a hard fact that Quinn can't deny and it's come so far since Bucky passed away. They can test DNA now. They can take some samples from the corpse buried in Brooklyn and compare it with one Rebecca Proctor, née Barnes. Of course, she has to convince Becca to do it.  

What the fuck is she even supposed to say to Becca? To _Steve_? Because like Quinn said, she's not even allowed to have Bucky's body exhumed without Becca's permission, but she won't do it without Steve's approval, either. "Oh, hey, I'm not actually over what happened to Bucky! Do you two mind if we exhume his body and compare DNQ because I think I fucked up and actually may've left him for dead back in the forties?" Yeah, the both of them would take that really well. 

There's a—kind of—outside third party that Quinn needs to talk with before she decides to pull Steve and Becca into this since that's about the only option left at this point. She needs to talk with someone that knows better than anyone—even Steve—how Quinn's brain works. She's pretty much become Quinn's impulse control which is funny because neither of them have a lick of impulse control. 

There's no better place to Skype than in her private office and Steve won't be able to overhear the conversation, either. So, Quinn locks the door behind her, plops down at her desk, turns her useless computer back on, and makes the video call. 

Not too many months after the Battle of New York, Andrea, who is Tommy and Jackie's baby, declared that she wanted to become a doctor, same as her dear old aunt Quinn—and, no, Quinn definitely didn't cry when Andy broke the news to her and Steve. Now, both Andy and Theodora, her older sister, are both as smart as a whip, so it wasn't a surprise when Andy ended up with a scholarship. Tommy told Quinn and Liam that they were under no circumstances allowed to try and influence Andy's decision of which school to attend. To everyone's shock, they actually listened to him. However, Quinn definitely took the low road and called to shove it in Liam's face when Andy decided on a New York school. 

 So, Andy moved on up to Brooklyn, spent a year on campus, and her roommate when she moved in had been one little Miss Charlotte. Charlotte—or Lotte, for short—is a spitfire from Texas with a hell of an artistic streak. It really isn't a wonder that Quinn and Steve took to her as quickly as they did, but no one ever expected that Andy would fall head over heels in love with Lotte. Probably because no one knew Andy was a lesbian. Well, except Thea. Thea apparently called it real early. Anyway, Andy and Lotte have since moved in to an apartment with each other. Lotte has also become a part of the family—even Liam, the ornery, overprotective old bastard, has finally warmed up to her.  

Lotte, as it happens, also has ADHD, so it only took a few conversations with Quinn before Lotte knew that Quinn has ADHD, too. Takes one to know one, Quinn supposes. Lotte actually told Steve about her ADHD before she asked if Quinn had it. Lotte was apparently really excited to know that a superhero could have ADHD, too. Steve learned more about ADHD from Lotte and not too soon after, sat Quinn down to talk about it because he realized that, holy shit, does Quinn have a lot of those same symptoms.  

As a doctor, of course Quinn knew what ADHD was, but…she never really put two and two together. But, like she's said, she doesn't really pay much attention to her own problems, anyway. It made sense, when she stopped to think about it and did a little more research into ADHD. Quinn's constant restlessness and inability to sit still, the impulsiveness worse than even Steve's, the way she rants and rants and sometimes doesn't exactly say the most appropriate shit. Yeah, those are all tells for hyperactive-impulsive ADHD. 

Technically, Quinn's dealt with ADHD since she was a kid. So, almost ninety years, she's had it. Charlotte, however, has lived with it and actually known it's there more than Quinn has. So, like Quinn said, she tries to keep in touch with Lotte because she has an informed opinion about if it's the ADHD behind a certain motivation or not. It hasn't necessarily stopped Quinn's impulsive, rash decisions, but it does help to stop and think about Lotte's disappointed face because, damn, it's nearly on Steve's level now. 

When Lotte answers the Skype call, there's some brief clatter, and she curses when she drops the phone on the floor. Quinn watches in amusement as Lotte fumbles around to pick up the phone and make a space on her easel for the phone to sit. Quinn must've interrupted her in the middle of homework or inspiration hit because Lotte's short, dark hair is tied back in a little stump and her russet skin is splattered with paint. A few more minutes before Quinn can see Lotte's face clearly and she beams down at Quinn. "Hey, Aunt Quinn," she croons and then frowns when she takes Quinn in completely. "Uh, you okay?" 

Quinn takes a deep breath and then blurts, "I have a really bad idea and it's probably because of the—y'know." She waves toward her head. Lotte understands immediately, thank God, and nods. "But I'm not sure, so I wanted your opinion. I can't exactly ask Steve about this one. Not yet." 

"Probably the ADHD, but I don't know, Aunt Quinn, you're pretty fucking crazy, too. So, it's probably both?" 

Quinn, rather than pay any attention to that comment, starts to rapidly explain, "So, I don't know if you know this, but Bucky didn't die when he fell from the train. Not immediately. Y'know, I actually don't think anyone in the family knows about it, but now you do." Lotte's mouth drops open in shock, but Quinn rambles on. "I have my mark and it was dark one day. We tried to save him, but the people who had him—" her expression softens and saddens and Quinn has to look away for a second. "I didn't. Save him, I mean. I didn't save him. But I had this bad dream and it made me think and…how the fuck am I supposed to be sure that he's dead? Jesus Christ, we live in some crazy times now, Lotte. Aliens and super soldier serums and—I want to check. I want to be _sure_. His sister, Becca, is alive and I could compare her DNA with the body that came back with me, but it's so disrespectful, isn't it?" 

"Um." 

Lotte can definitely keep up with Quinn when she rambles, so he doesn't slow down. "Do you think this is an overreaction? I think it could be. Maybe. But it was the forties when this went down and the only reason we assumed it was him is because of his dog tags. All these years, it's only been his mark that's been crazy. I have a super soldier serum, but my mark fucks up? Doesn't that seem weird to you?" She takes another deep breath. "You know what else is weird? I tried to look up that old report today, but my computer blocked me—me, who literally helped birth SHIELD. All day, everyone's been in my way so I can't track down this damn report. I swear, it's like no one wants me to look any deeper into this." 

"That is," Lotte pauses to let the information sink in and then her brows furrow, "definitely weird, yeah. I think it's pretty reasonable and I don't think this is the ADHD. You've waited, like, almost seventy years to do this? I'm really shocked you didn't think to do this sooner. Uh, okay, so it may be a _little_ ADHD since you want to literally dig up his body. By the way, when will you be here? And do you have a shovel or two?" 

Quinn huffs in amusement. "Good to know you're happy to help me with any dead bodies in the future." Lotte beams with pride. "But this one you don't have to worry about, okay? You've done plenty to help me out. I'll make sure to take you out next time I'm up in New York. I don't know if it'll be soon 'cause I have to talk with Becca since she has the last say-so. She's his next of kin. Have to talk to Steve, too." 

"Yikes," Lotte says and her expression sours. "I love Uncle Steve dearly, but you don't have to technically tell him about this." 

"No, I do need to talk to him about it," Quinn replies with a frown. "We don't keep secrets from each other. He's my husband and this is our soulmate. Besides, he had Bucky before I ever came in the picture. Steve deserves to know." 

"Have I mentioned how much I love you two?" Lotte sighs dreamily. "After Andy and me, you two are literally the cutest couple on the face of the planet. You're so…dedicated to each other. Hashtag relationship goals." She squeals happily for a second. "Sorry. I had to do the thing. I know this is serious." 

"Don't worry about it. I'll need your cute face to convince Steve not to divorce me if this all goes sideways on me." 

"You're such a drama queen. He won't divorce you. You'll probably end up on the couch. Then, you'll make up and have marathon sex." 

Quinn's cheeks heat up. "We don't have marathon sex," she hisses. "What the fuck even is marathon sex? Where did you even hear that? Why are we even discussing this? This is way too inappropriate—" 

Lotte rolls her eyes. "I'm in _college_. I'm not five. I know what sex is," she informs Quinn primly then shoots her a sharp look. "And I know for a fact that you have marathon sex because me and Andy each tried to surprise you two at different times of the day when classes let out and you were _still at it_. More than I ever need to hear from my aunt and uncle." 

"I refuse to discuss my sex life with you, Charlotte." 

"Your very healthy sex life," she corrects with a shit-eating grin. 

"Goodbye, Lotte." 

"Bye, Aunt Quinn," Lotte chirps. "I'll have a shovel on standby. I love you!" 


	3. What's Dead Should Stay Dead

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The dead have it so easy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you've been on the story's Tumblr page, you'll know that I've been having some issues with my physical health, so I kinda went on a hiatus. I think we've finally got what's been going on with me pinned down, so I decided to get off my ass and whip up another chapter for you guys. You'll also see a new update to the Limitless story because I replied to a Tumblr porn prompt and it was too long to post on Tumblr. So, you guys get a double whammy tonight!  
> In regards to this chapter right here, get ready for some fucking angst, my dudes. I hope you guys like the drama. Again, thank you so fucking much with putting up with my non-regular updating ass. I love you guys!

Steve isn't home when Quinn makes it back from the office. There's no dinner on the stove, either, which works out perfect for her. She absolutely did not stop at the store to pick up food for a shepherd's pie because that would make her the exact same as her mother who always whipped up traditionally Irish dishes whenever she needed to suck up to Pa. Quinn…wants to break out of her comfort zone—that's her story and she'll stick to it. She would _never_ try to butter her husband up with food that his own ma used to make him. Quinn's above that.

After Quinn throws the pie in the oven to cook, she kicks off her heels and takes a nice, hot shower. God, her feet hurt. Why did she wear those pumps? Oh, because they're sexy as hell, that's why. Every time she wears them, Steve looks at her like he wants to devour her and she always drinks that shit up. Did she always used to be this vain? Maybe. Anyway, once she's done in the bathroom, she throws on Steve's clothes instead of her own—one of his extremely worn in shirts and a pair of his boxers. She loves to wear his clothes and he loves to see her in them since after the first time he came home and saw her in them he fucked her within an inch of her life. Good times.

Now, Quinn had estimated that the pie would be near about done by the time she made it out of the bathroom, but she either overshot it or spent more time in the shower than she meant to because when she walks back in the kitchen, Steve's at the table with the pie in front of him. There's a fork halfway up to his mouth when he spots her in the doorway and then he stops.

"Good?" she assumes with a chuckle.

Steve smiles sheepishly before he shoves more of the pie in his mouth. "Very," he answers, mouth full, and she frowns. She's on her way to _don't talk with your mouth full,_ but he rolls his eyes, swallows, and interrupts her with, "Yeah, I know, _Claire_. Rude to talk with food in your mouth."

"Hey, asshole, those are _manners_. I know for a fact that you learned what manners are from your momma, didn't you?" She rolls her own eyes and moves over to take a plate out of the cabinet. "God rest her soul, how that woman ever put up with your troublemakin' ass, I don't know." He pouts up at her and when she walks over to the table, she reaches out to run her thumb across his plush bottom lip. Then, because she’s especially in love today, she leans down to kiss the top of his head. "Made it special for you," she whispers.

"What'd I do?" Steve teases and she smiles. "Hey, whatever I did to make you whip this up for me, I'll do it all the time." He catches her wrist and pulls her down so he can kiss her square on the lips. "Thanks. This is exactly like what my ma made me."

"Fuck anyone that says I can't cook," she says proudly.

“Fuck anyone that says you can’t cook,” he agrees and shoves some more pie in his mouth.

Quinn drops down at the table across from him and starts in on the pie with him. Between them both, they’ll devour it, and she thinks that maybe she should’ve made more. He’s said that the dishes his ma used to make would stick to his ribs, make him feel full after a few bites, but he didn’t have a super soldier serum then. Love does weird shit to a person because when Steve eats like a barbarian, but Quinn watches Steve fondly while he does.

Fuck, and she absolutely loathes the fact that she has to ruin the nice moment here, but if she doesn't do it now then probably won't ever be able to work up the nerve for it. To think, there are people out there who consider her a hero, who think she's _brave_. Also, if she does it now, there'll be time for Steve to cool off before bed because she _knows_ how he ticks and he'll end up mad at her over this. These days, he doesn't even want Bucky mentioned because it's easier to heal when the dead actually stay dead. She can't blame him. She used to be that way, too. Anyway, hopefully, she'll still have a cuddle buddy for bed rather than end up on the couch. Jesus, they need a pet. Both Steve and Quinn have spent their fair share of time on the couch and a puppy would make it a little less miserable.

As she opens her mouth to start this dreaded conversation, her cell phone interrupts and vibrates loudly on the table. She scowls at it for a second because, seriously, this whole day has been full of people in her way. When she looks to see who it is, her brows raise and she blurts, "Alice?" Alice is one of Quinn's newest SHIELD nurses. Technically, Quinn hands out her number to all the nurses who work closest to her, but the only one who ever feels the need to call Quinn is Amanda and that's because she's the head nurse and also keeps Quinn's head on her shoulders.

"Alice?" Steve repeats confusedly. "Isn't she one of the newest in your department?"

Quinn squints at him. "How do you know that? She's only been at SHIELD for—you know what? Never mind." She exactly knows how he knows. Amanda probably talks to Steve more than she talks with Quinn. Amanda and Steve are like two little old ladies. She wouldn't be surprised if they meet up at the park and feed birds or play chess while they talk.

So, Quinn decides to bitch at Steve later over how much he fusses about her when she's at work later—since she still plans to have _the talk_ with him and doesn't need any more reasons to make him mad at her. Instead, she answers the phone with, "Alice, hey there, honey, how are you? What's up?" It probably has to be serious since she still has those new boss jitters around Quinn. Plus, from what she's heard from Amanda and the other nurses, Alice is also real shy, too.

"Doctor Hayden," Alice starts and pauses to let out a sob so loud that even Steve hears it since he snaps to attention across from her. ""Doctor Hayden," she repeats as she tries to start over. "I hate to bother you and Captain Rogers, but you said if we ever needed you then we could call you and—" she sniffles. "Can I come over?"

"Absolutely you can," Quinn answers immediately. "I even made supper and it's Steve approved. Well, if you know him, you'd know that's not worth much since he doesn't have the highest standards when it comes to food, but I'd like to think it tastes okay." Alice has always fallen for Quinn's shitty attempts at humor, but not now, so yeah, she's real upset. "I'll text you our address, okay?"

After Quinn's off the phone and shot Alice a text, Steve, as he starts to clean up after the two of them, mutters petulantly, "I have decent standards, thanks, you asshole."

"Your stomach is a black hole, Steve," she points out and he only pouts more. "But, hey, my stomach is infinitely worse than yours. I’d eat a boot if you put in on a plate for me. You know how my metabolism works."

He eyes her warily. "That mean my food is shit?" Mayday. Mayday. That definitely didn't come out the way she meant it to. Lord, she needs to think about the crap that comes out of her mouth before she says it.

"No, sweetheart, your food is fantastic," she quickly defends and he nods with pride. "You know you're the world's finest trophy husband."

"Damn straight I am," he replies with absolutely no shame at all.

"You're the furthest from straight there is, Steve," she says and doesn't even think about it as it comes out of her mouth. Then, she blinks. He blinks, too. They both think real hard for a second about what she said there and they both crack up.

 

Alice is a tiny slip of a thing, but she's beautiful. Okay, everyone is tiny compared to Quinn and Steve. Anyway, even in tears, she's nearly flawless. No offense, but no one's a pretty crier. Alice doesn't even have any makeup on to ruin with waterworks, but she's still decked out in skinny jeans, the cutest sweatshirt, and has on one of those infinity scarfs. Quinn needs some fashion tips from her…when she's not upset, obviously. Then, suddenly, her focus lands on the thick folder Alice has clutched to the center of her chest.

The second that the door closes behind her, Alice declares, "I'm a lesbian." _And I'm bisexual, what's your point_ , Quinn wants to throw back at her cheekily, but bites it down. This is a serious situation. Lotte would be so proud of Quinn. "I've dated Isabella Robertson from records for two years now. She's the one who actually helped me find a spot in SHIELD. I know we're not supposed to fraternize at work—" she starts to cry and Quinn scrambles to lead her over to the couch to sit down.

Quinn hopes there's more than one Robertson in records. Her stomach clenches nervously because she thinks Alice may have some bad news. "Is that all? Alice, honey, Steve's literally married to the boss. Besides, you two are in completely different departments inside SHIELD. You don't need to be so upset about this. It doesn't mess with your spot—"

"Bella's missing," Alice cries.

"What?" Quinn whispers.

"We had a date planned. After my shift was over. I showed up at her apartment to pick her up and her closet was completely cleaned out. I tried to call her phone, but she left it behind. She didn't even take her _car_. She literally disappeared. But she left this file for me to find and I don't understand it. I don't know why she'd leave it to _you_ , either."

Quinn stares down at the file in shock. That surely to God can't be the report Quinn was after earlier, can it? Why the hell would Robertson lie to that fella she worked with if she planned to let Quinn have it? Why would Robertson risk it to sneak the file off SHIELD property without the proper authorization? What scared her so bad that she had to pack up and leave without a trace? That nervousness Quinn feels slowly starts to turn to dread.

"Can I see it?" Quinn asks quietly and Alice hands the folder over without a word. Quinn flips the front cover open to stare down at the papers yellowed by decades. The SSR symbol is stamped at the top. She rubs her thumb across the year _1948_. "I've looked for this file all day today. Robertson—sorry. _Bella_ , she'd been helpin' me with it. I had to meet with someone and left her to it, but she'd left for the day when I went back to records. She passed on the news that she didn't find it."

"Bella never lies. She'd never lie without some really important reason," Alice croaks. She looks cried out, the poor thing. "Why would Bella steal this? She…she's not in some kind of trouble, is she? She couldn't get hurt over this, could she? What's so important about this file, Doctor Hayden?"

_Not shit_ , Quinn wants to say to Alice. The only reason the file should be important is a sentimental one and it's only to Quinn. Did Robertson read this and find out some kind of a problem that spooked her? It still wouldn't make sense. Other than Quinn, anyone involved with this particular case is dead or on their way to it. This mission is no more than ghosts now.

Quinn has no idea how to move ahead with this. Whatever she found out put Robertson on the run. Quinn wants to tell Alice she'll have SHIELD look into it, but maybe…maybe that's what Robertson is so scared of. She thinks to tell Alice not to worry about it—tell her that Robertson is an asshole that broke her heart and Alice deserves better, but that's cruel. She doesn't want Alice involved because this is suspicious as hell and there's trouble on the horizon, she can feel it.

"This…" Quinn starts slowly and closes the folder, puts a hand on top of it. "This is a report from 1948. It isn't so important that she'll be hurt over it. It wasn't supposed to be important," Quinn mutters but it's more to herself. "Go on home, Alice," she decides to tell the other woman. "If she's not there tomorrow then head to the police and file a report." Tears start to roll down Alice's cheeks and Quinn reaches up to wipe them away. "I'll put SHIELD on the case, too. Keep this quiet when you're at work, okay? You don't need to be pulled away for hours of debrief when you could be headin' up the hunt for her, yeah?"

Alice throws her arms around Quinn's neck and cries into the crook of it for a few minutes. "I wanted to ask her to marry me," she confesses and that breaks Quinn's heart, that she ruined this relationship with her paranoia. "Thank you, Doctor Hayden," she adds. Quinn wishes that Alice wouldn't thank her. Quinn doesn't deserve it.

 

As Quinn closes the door behind Alice, Steve almost appears out of thin air. He leans back on the door, maybe to make sure she can't throw it open and run like a coward which she briefly thinks about. To someone else, his posture makes it out to be like he's casual about the whole deal, but his whole body is a line of tension, and his jaw looks sharper than usual. The thick folder is in a hand, clenched so hard that the paper crinkles in protest, and it's opened so she can see Bucky's name. Great. Peachy. He's beyond pissed. Quinn knocks her forehead on the door really hard a few times before she turns to meet her maker.

"I planned to tell you about this," she explains because she feels like she should try to defend herself a little here. "At supper, actually," she adds and he snorts. Yeah, anyone in her situation would probably say that, _but,_ "I mean it. I really did plan to tell you. You know I wouldn't lie to you, Steve, especially when it comes to Bucky."

_There_ it is—the quick flash of pain in his eyes before they harden. He watches her, expression blank, and she can't help but drop her own eyes and rub her upper arm. Her cheeks heat up from the shame. He takes a deep breath, to try and calm down, and then he whispers, "This is about the bad dream, isn't it?"

"No," she blurts and briefly makes eye contact with him. He raises a brow and she looks back down. "Okay, yeah, a little. I…I can't help but think that…maybe he's not as dead as—or, I mean, he has to be now since it's been—" she moans in frustration and scrubs her hands across her face. "I can't even say I want closure because if—I don't know what I want, Steve. But I see you, whole and here with me, and I see _hope_. You went down in the ice and came out of it alive. Yeah, I know your mark didn't pop up between decades, so maybe Bucky—maybe all these years—" this doesn't make sense. Wow. She can't even defend her actions here. Jesus, she's a mess. "All I wanted was to see the report and hope it'd somehow help…settle me."

"Settle your conscience, you mean," Steve reads between the lines. At least he's not mean when he points it out. Honestly, it sounds like he's sympathetic. He understands better than anyone else, after all, how much it hurts to lose Bucky the way they did. "So," he starts and sounds calmer than before. "Did you tell Alice the truth? Did Bella really say she couldn't find it?"

She nods. “Yeah. If I'd know all this trouble would come out of this, I would've let Jarvis hack the system instead. I tried to look up the damn report on my computer to save everyone the trouble, but—can you believe it said _my_ access was denied by order of _Zola_?" Steve's eyes narrow in suspicion and she nods enthusiastically because, "Yeah, I had the same reaction, too! So, I went to records. Bella didn't seem too excited to help me look, but she did it anyway. _Then_ , when we’re elbow deep in the bowels of records, Secretary Pierce came to crash the party 'cause he wanted to meet with me. I told Bella to let me know if she found it, but when I went back to look for her, she wasn't there. The boy at the desk told me that she told him to tell me that she couldn't find it and was sorry. All of today's been weird. No. Actually, _everyone_ has been weird today except me, you, and Lotte."

Steve's brows furrow. "Yes. Fine. I can admit that this all does sound a little weird—wait. What'd you call Lotte for?"

"Oh. Uh." Well, if he had been on her side before, he's not about to be now. "You know I always ask her on her opinion of whether it's me or the—" she waves at her brain, "—at work. I wanted to know what she’d think about what I wanted to do after I found out the report was a bust." He waits for her to say what exactly she needed Lotte's opinion on and she takes a deep breath then rushes to admit, "I wanted to ask you if you'd let me ask Becca for a DNA test."

"Jesus, Quinn," Steve hisses and leans away from the door sharply. Here comes that hot Irish temper she swears up and down he inherited from his ma because she’d have to have had to deal with this man as her son. " _Seriously_?” She needs to wait until he’s worn himself out before she tries to reason with him. “So, did you plan to tell me that you'd have to pull his body up or did you hope I wouldn't know about that part?" She opens her mouth, but he doesn't let her talk. She would've told him, by the way, but she knows he’s a smart man and would’ve known. Oh, and he loves procedural cop shows, for some reason, and would’ve picked it up from those. "Now you want to pull both Becca and Bucky into this? All because you can't deal with a bad dream you had?”

Steve storms back toward the couch, but he can’t stay in one place when he’s mad. He paces back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. She swears she can almost see steam blow out of his ears. For a second, when he stops, she thinks he’s worn himself out, but no, he whirls around and stares at her with hot blue eyes. “Let me ask you somethin', Quinn, what'll happen when you have your answer? What if the DNA comes back a match and it’s really him down there? Or, God forbid, let’s say this harebrained idea of yours turns out to be true and it _isn’t_ his body that came home? Then what? Huh? Will it really make that much of a difference? This really about to make you feel better? Will _anything_ make you feel better? _Really_? Will you ever—"

"Get over it?" Quinn's own temper rears its nasty head now. How can he say that to her? She’d expect it from everyone else over the years, who told her she needed to move on, but _him_? Out of everyone— _Steve_? "Who the fuck do you think you are, Steve? Let’s talk about _you_. Why don’t we do that, huh? You can sit there and act like you're so much better than me, but at least I can _talk_ about him. At least I don't…stomp down his memory and pretend he wasn't ever there."

"I don't do that," Steve snarls and that makes her scoff because what she's seen since he came out of the ice says otherwise. "I'm sorry, Quinn, that I haven't had _seventy years_ to deal with it. I have an excuse. You? You don’t. You don't know what it was like, to have him there at your side since practically the day you were born and then have him ripped away so—so _violently_. You don't know what it did to me. You don’t know how it broke me to pieces. Some days, it’s all I see when I close my eyes. When he needed me most and I couldn't reach him in time—"

"I _don't_?" Quinn starts to shake and she doesn't know if it's because she's so insanely pissed off or because she's about to bust out into tears after what he said to her. "No, you let me tell _you_ somethin', Steve. You don't know what I had to deal with. _This_ ," she snatches the report from his hands and then tosses it on the floor, "doesn't explain shit of what it was like for me. You don't know how much I hoped and prayed to God when I saw his name that I'd make it in time and I _didn't_. I touched the damn door before it literally blew up in my face. I had to hold his charred tags, look and smell his charred body, and had to stare Missus Winnie and Mister George and Becca in the eye and say I couldn’t save their son. You don’t know what that was like. And this—this damn mark has _haunted_ me for it, swear to God that's what it feels like." Look at her. She feels like a dumb shit. A person can't compare the way she tries to here. Pain is pain and no two people can feel it the same. "Love and loss don't have an expiration date—that's what you told me, Steve. And you know what? That's true. It really, really doesn't."

"Just because you've been hurt doesn't mean you can be selfish," he snaps.

“Selfish?” she repeats incredulously. “ _Selfish_? How the fuck is this selfish? It isn’t selfish to want to _know_ —”

“Yes, it is, Quinn,” he shouts. “Bucky is _dead_. It doesn’t matter whether his body is here in America or at the bottom of a ravine or somewhere else we don’t know about—he’ll still be dead. Dead. Do you hear me? Or do you want me to spell it out for you?”

Lowly, she warns, “Don’t patronize me.”

“Then, for fuck’s sake, let our soulmate have some damn peace and let him stay dead.”

“That must be so easy for you to say because you haven’t spent seventy years with Bucky’s death on your conscience.” Then—and she knows it’s a mistake as soon as it comes out of her mouth, but she’s mad and hurt and wants to hurt him back—she adds, “I didn’t take the easy way out like you did. I _lived_ with what happened. I didn’t run after him in death because I couldn’t stand a world without him in it. But, you know what, it’s understandable. I know why you did what you did. You had him before anyone else. You were two pieces that made the whole, but poor you. You were stuck with a third wheel. He was _your_ soulmate. He was never mine, was he?”

Quinn’s not perfect. Furthest from it. She’s always been a sinner over a saint. So, she feels a twisted kind of satisfaction when Steve immediately balks and backs down. A darker, more primal part of her points out that he’s wide open and she could take the kill, but she’s human. There’s a lot of people who would’ve said otherwise, but she’s no animal, and she’s hurt. She’s touched base on every damn insecurity she’s ever had in her life—her failure to save Bucky, to convince Steve to stay with her instead of crash the plane, the fear that they were never hers at all, and the worst of them all…that she’s always been defective. She’s exhausted and wants to crawl into bed and never leave, but she can’t be around Steve. Not when she doesn’t trust herself to shut the fuck up and not hurt him more. She loves Steve and doesn’t want to hurt him anymore, as hypocritical as that may sound.

There’s a couch in her office at headquarters. It isn’t comfortable, but she doesn’t have anywhere else to crash at that’s close by. She turns around and leaves their apartment without a sound.

-

Around one in the morning, Quinn’s phone vibrates. Technically, it’s done that ever since she left the apartment, but she can’t sleep. She’s turned this way and that, watched the orange glow of the city and cars make the shadows dance around the room, and has cried almost the whole time. She decides she should at least check her phone to make sure there’s no kind of catastrophe. Global catastrophe. Not the one that happened between her and Steve.

There are a bunch of missed calls from Steve and even more texts. Summed up, they all basically say _come home_. She probably eventually will because she’s hurt and he’s hurt and, ironically, they’re the only people that can make it feel better. Also, she hasn’t had any decent sleep since she came back from her latest mission. So, yeah, she’ll probably head back home before the earliest batch of people start their shifts. She wants to make her walk of shame as less public as possible, if she can.

Tony was the most recent missed call and he tries a second time. Steve’s contact died off after a few hours when he realized she wouldn’t respond. Either Steve went to Tony for help or Tony wanted to talk and didn’t care about what time it is on the east coast. With Tony, she can’t be sure until she talks to him. She doesn’t want to talk to anyone, but Tony’s a persistent asshole.

“Tony, it’s late,” she tells him as soon as she answers the call and hopes her voice doesn’t waver the way it usually does after she’s bawled her eyes out. “Can’t this wait until later on? I was asleep,” she lies.

“No, you weren’t,” Tony replies and sounds more cheery than he should. Or maybe that’s her bad mood that talks. “Good to know that even Captain America fucks up and makes the wife mad.” So, Steve decided to call Tony then. “ _Ow._ Pep, that _hurt_ , honey bunch,” he says loudly to Pepper after there’s a thump and some barked comment. She doesn’t pay attention to what she says exactly. “ _Anyway_ , what’d he do? Do I need to fly out and help you pack? Do you need to sit me down for the divorce talk?”

Quinn closes her eyes and she was sure there weren’t any more tears left in her, but there are. “Tony,” she starts quietly and knows her voice does wobble now. “Please. I’m tired.”

There’s a pause. At some point—she’ll blame it on Pepper and Rhodey—Tony finally started to understand people. “Okay,” he relents. He doesn’t push. “Just tell me you’re not out on the streets. You won’t answer the old timer and he’s worried. Now, Pepper is, too.” By Pepper, he means Tony…and actually Pepper too since Quinn’s probably on speaker.

“I’m at my office,” Quinn explains. “I’m a super soldier, by the way. You _and_ Steve both should remember that. I’d be okay out on the streets.”

“Wow. The point flew over your head there, didn’t it? I can’t believe _I’m_ about to say this, but the whole point was that we wanted to make sure you’re _okay_. We _care_.”

“I know.”

Darkly, Tony mutters, “As you’d put it, I’m about to tear your boy toy a new one.” He pauses. “Call me later if you’re in the mood for it. I’ll be up and needed to talk to someone about some plans I have for my tower in New York.”

The best she can do is, “Maybe, but probably not. I’m tired. Talk to you later, Tony.”

Before the other end of the line clicks, she briefly hears Tony start to say, “Pepper, I need a suit. I swear, I’ll rip his _balls off_ —”

-

Slowly, carefully, Quinn opens the bedroom door. The sun has only barely started to peek over the horizon. There were no more shadows for Quinn to watch…or Steve, since he’s awake, probably has been since she walked out. He leans up on an elbow, but she doesn’t meet his eyes. Instead, she walks around to the other side of the bed, crawls in, and shows him her back as she pulls the sheets over her. She closes her eyes, breathes in and out, and hopes to catch some sleep before she has to deal with the fallout of this. That’s the worst part, she thinks—the fallout.

Steve then touches her upper arm and her eyes snap open. It takes a lot for her not to tense up, but she keeps relaxed. Like she said earlier, they’re the only people who can fix one another’s hurt, and she really wants him to touch her. When she doesn’t recoil, he takes that as the okay, and plasters himself across her back. He fits his knees in the bend of hers, reaches a hand under the pillow hers is already under and takes her hand, puts the other hand around her waist, and presses his lips to the back of her neck.

In a small voice, he reminds her, “You’re my whole heart.”

“I love you,” she calls back in an even smaller voice. “Like a mountain.” She curls in on herself even more, but he follows, and her tears start back up. “I’m sorry.”

“I’m sorry, too,” he croaks and maybe he’s cried a little himself. “You’re my soulmate, Quinn. I’ll tell you every day if that’ll make it stick. I love you so much, okay?”

“I know,” she says. “I know.”

Let the dead have some peace, was what he snapped at her earlier. But the dead, Quinn realizes, have all the peace in the world. The people who’re left behind with holes in their hearts, left behind with their cracked and splintered souls, _they’re_ the ones that need some damn rest. It isn’t fair. It really isn’t fair. And almost viciously, for a second, she hates Bucky. In the wake of his death, he left behind two broken people, and Quinn and Steve still try to pick up the pieces of themselves, even seventy years later. Quinn hates him and she loves him and she envies him because there’s no more pain when you’re dead.


	4. Whistleblower

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quinn's week is only getting rougher.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Have I ever mentioned how much I love the political thriller vibe of CA:TWS? I'm really enjoying Quinn starting to find out that her life's work is about to be for nothing too much. I also name dropped Bucky. I know you guys are salivating for his reappearance and only care about that, but! Only a few more chapters to go before we get some Bucky action! We're finally starting to dive into CA:TWS!  
> By the way, it's my birthday and I can't think of any better present than you reviewing here or chatting me up on [the story's Tumblr page](http://www.quinnhayden.tumblr.com).  
> I love you guys and hope y'all have a happy holidays!

Quinn wakes up, no more rested than she’d been when she eventually drifted off to sleep. There’s no one in bed beside her, either, but she does hear the shower run. Out of instinct, her hand moves to the spot next to her and it isn’t warm, so that leads her to believe that Steve’s been up a little while. She assumes that he went out on a run and she simply didn’t wake up when he crawled out of bed. That there definitely says a lot about how drained she’d been when she went to sleep because she would’ve woken up otherwise. They lost that sleep like the dead habit back in the war. Anyway, it isn’t like it would’ve mattered if she woke up or not since the sleep didn’t help her one bit, it feels like.

When she leans up from the mattress to rub the sleep out of her eyes, she spots the shield propped up by the bedroom door. So, Steve’s headed out on a mission then. After she spots it, Quinn has a real mental debate because she desperately wants to hop in the shower with him, send him off in a nice way, but she’s not sure if it’d be the smartest idea, especially after what happened yesterday between them. A hot shower would also really help her feel a lot less like shit, what with how much she cried her eyes out, but she decides better of it.

Instead, Quinn crawls out of bed, heads toward the kitchen, and whips them up some breakfast as quick as she can. No doubt that he’ll probably have to report to SHIELD soon and she wants to be a little helpful. Besides, what is it that people say about men and food? The quickest way to a man’s heart is his stomach. That’s probably the quickest way for someone’s husband not be mad at them anymore, too. On her way to the stove, she spots the troublesome folder in the center of the table, and snatches it to put it on a counter, out of the way. At some point, she’ll have to take it back to records. She’s not quite sure how she’s supposed to explain the way it ended up in her hands. Hopefully, no one will try to ask her too many questions about it. She’s learned to perfect her bitch face, courtesy of Natasha.

Steve must catch the scent of breakfast from the bathroom and walks into the kitchen, bare chested, a towel over his head to dry off his hair. Quinn looks over her shoulder at the noise he makes and he smiles at her timidly. She shoots him back her own and the tension in the room drops a notch. They’ll be okay, she knows. They always are. The two of them, they both have some hot tempers and have run their mouths more than once, and this may have been one of the nastier ones, but they always make up in some way or another. It won’t be any different now.

Breakfast is a pretty quiet affair, but she didn’t expect any different from that. Then, after Steve drops his plate off in the sink, he picks up the folder she shoved away in a corner and walks back over to put it back on the table between them. Quinn tenses up, slowly lowers her fork back on her plate, and watches him warily. Did she miscalculate? The time he spent awake before her, did he use that to think over what happened yesterday, and did it upset him all over again? Did he need a break before he started back up?

Gently, to her complete and total shock, he says, “If it’ll make you feel better then you should talk to Becca.”

Oh. Well. _Shit_. She definitely didn’t expect that. “No,” she answers immediately with a shake of her head. If Steve can compromise then so should she. That’s what married people do, isn’t it? “No, Steve, I—” she pauses and takes a deep breath. “It was true, what you said to me. It won’t make one bit of difference what I do or find out. Dead is dead, yeah?” She smiles wryly down at her plate. “And it is selfish, for me to do this to you, because you need to heal and this doesn’t help. I’ve had seventy years to deal with this, Steve. You shouldn’t be punished because I didn’t use that time the way I should’ve.”

“But it isn’t only this that you’ve had to deal with, is it? You’ve seen wars, seen friends and family die, seen—there’s been a lot besides what happened back then,” Steve points out calmly. “I shouldn’t be mad at you because it’s hard for you to deal with it sometimes. We have to heal at our own speed. If this helps you, in any way, then I want you to do it. You’d do the same for me, wouldn’t you?” She nods and he reaches out to take her hand.

“Thank you, sweetheart, but I’m done with it.” She squeezes his hand briefly before she pulls it back so she can finish breakfast. “I need to worry about here and now. I may not have Bucky anymore, but I do have you back and I don’t ever want to lose you.”

Steve watches Quinn worriedly as she cleans off her plate. When he starts to chew on his bottom lip, she puts down her fork for the last time. Whatever he wants to say—which he will say, she has no doubt—it must be bad because he has to stop and think about how to spit it out. “Maybe…” he starts slowly, trails off, and stops completely. She assumes he decided to drop it and picks up her cup to take a drink, but then he decides he does want to say whatever it is. “Maybe you should see P—”

“No,” Quinn interrupts immediately and a lot harsher than she should’ve been about it. But she didn’t need to hear the name to know who he meant—and honestly, she didn’t really want to hear him say her name, either. “No, Steve. Don’t even start. Drop it now while you’re ahead.”

“ _Quinn_.”

This here…she won’t compromise on this. “Steve—” she has to put her cup back on the table so she doesn’t squeeze it so hard that it shatters in her hands. “Please, can we not talk about this? I can’t do it. I can’t pretend anymore that it’ll be okay. I can’t…see her.” She squeezes her eyes shut, but tears still sting at the corners. “It hurts too much,” she strains to explain.

“She misses you.”

“No, she doesn’t,” she snaps. “She doesn’t remember me. That’s the problem.”

“Actually, it’s me she doesn’t remember most of the time. You were a more important part of her life than I ever was.” Quinn has to look away from him. As hard as she tried to keep them away, a tear rolls down her cheek. “She won’t be around forever, Quinn,” Steve reminds her sadly.

There’s so much that Quinn wants to say in response to that comment, but she’s too overwhelmed by the waves of emotion to speak. Somehow, Peggy has become to Quinn what Bucky is to Steve, and how did Quinn not see that sooner? Any mention of her Pegs and Quinn automatically shuts down. Jesus, she isn’t even dead, and Quinn already mourns her. The Alzheimer’s…it beat down Peggy so much faster than anyone expected. Hell, it could’ve been there before but Quinn never knew about it until it was too late. Peggy’s kids, they’ve never rushed to keep Quinn in the loop, not when they blamed Quinn for the divorce for as many years as they did. They’ve been more open with Steve, but that’s because they think Steve’s a close friend, like Dum-Dum and Gabe. The kids didn’t know how close Peggy was with Quinn, Steve, and Bucky.

“No,” Quinn finally says after a few painful minutes stuck inside her damn head. “No, I don’t reckon she will be.” She wants this conversation to be over with, so she stands up. “I need to take a shower myself. Wherever you’re headed, be safe,” she orders softly and leans down to kiss the top of his head. “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” he answers and takes her face in his hands so he can pull her down a little further and kiss her on the lips. She tries to force a smile, but it doesn’t come out the way it should, so she turns around and walks away. She tries not to squirm because she can _feel_ his eyes bore holes into her back as she leaves the kitchen. This has to be one of her most cowardly retreats, she knows, but she won’t deal with this anymore.

 

In the shower, Quinn has a private pity party.

Sometimes, she desperately wishes she could be as optimistic as she used to be, but the decades have made her realistic, if not a little pessimistic. These days, there’s more than one person she should see more because she knows they don’t have much time left in this world. Quinn has Steve to share the burden with now, but it won’t make the blows any easier when they come. Gabe, Dum-Dum, Josephine, Sophia, and Liam…each name is like a dose of salt to this particular wound in Quinn’s heart. This deep cut won’t ever close up, she thinks, because eventually more names will come after that batch. Tommy, Jackie, Tony, Rhodey, Pepper, Clint, Natasha, Theodora, Andrea, Lotte—she has to sit down in the shower and curl in on herself. They still don’t know about Steve and if his serum will act the same as hers. Will she have to watch him wither away, too?

The spray of hot water pours down on her head and she covers her mouth to quiet her sob. If Steve’s still in the apartment, she doesn’t want to make him feel bad. This happens to her sometimes—the reality of her future that smacks her in the face. Each and every person she loves, she’ll lose them all. It hurts. It hurts so damn bad. There’s an ache that sinks down to the bone.

But…as much as it’ll hurt to lose them, Quinn knows that this is best. She’d rather love and lose them than have them be cursed the same way she’s been, she thinks as she tilts her head back to let the water wash away her tears. Back in the war, when Zola had chosen Quinn to experiment on, she’d been so sure he had somehow collected a little fire and brimstone from hell, turned it into a liquid serum, and that was what he shoved in her veins. Briefly, after Howard broke the news to Quinn about the serum, she was certain what Zola found instead had been the Fountain of Youth. Now that Quinn’s older, a bit wiser, it doesn’t matter what the name is, they’re both the same. Maybe the Fountain of Youth is merely a place in hell.

Thousands of years, people have been obsessed with the key to immortality, and Quinn—who may be the closest person on Earth to it—thinks what a bunch of poor bastards they must’ve been to want such a curse.

\---

What better way is there to really hammer home the point that she’s a terrible and selfish person than to do lunch with Sam and not take Steve’s advice? There is no better way, that’s the answer. Fuck her life. What-the-fuck-ever, it doesn’t matter. In the past week, her heart’s taken some blows, so sue her if she doesn’t want to add any more to it. Guilt will eventually start to eat away at her so much that she’ll break down and head to see Peggy, anyway. So, she’ll do what she does best and put it off to deal with it some other time.

Quinn can’t spend time with Natasha since she’s on that mission with Steve. Clint is also busy with a mission of his own. Thor, the asshole who didn’t even let anyone know he’d been back on Earth, is back off world after his disaster in London. And she’s too embarrassed to look Tony, Pepper, or Rhodey in the eye so soon after they were put in the middle of her and Steve’s domestic spat. Unfortunately for her, she also really craves some human contact at the moment. There’s no one else she can think of other than her new friend, Sam.

Sam and Quinn meet up with each other in front of a little authentic Mexican restaurant that Sam swears up and down by. When they walk inside, no one notices who Quinn is or they plain don’t care, but whatever the reason, it’s a relief. An employee seats them as far away from the window as possible, where no bystander could point her out, so maybe they do realize who she is and are the kind of people to help her out instead of kick up a fuss themselves. Quinn plans to leave a nice tip, that’s for sure.

The two of them can’t do more than make small talk because as soon as they’re at the table and have their drinks, they order. It makes sense because there aren’t many other people in the restaurant despite the lunch hour. It doesn’t much matter to her since she doesn’t need much time to think about what she wants. She hasn’t eaten since breakfast and her stomach hates her for it. She only feels a little self-conscious while she places her order, but thankfully, neither Sam nor their server bats an eye at the amount of food.

“I talked to your husband today,” Sam starts casually after they’ve handed back over their menus. “Actually, he talked to me. I kind of knew about the trash talk, but, man, I didn’t think he was that bad.” She raises a brow at him. “You seem more down to Earth, so maybe you should let him know that some of us run at a normal human pace.”

“I can tell him if you want, but it won’t make him be any less of an asshole.”

“I wish you would’ve warned me about him,” he complains with a little pout that makes her smile down into her cup of sweet tea. “But you know what? I dealt with him and it’s cool now. I made sure to remind him that you’re the cheetah in the relationship. That took him down a notch.”

Yeah, Quinn reckons any mention of her would’ve made Steve sober up real quick, but probably not for the reason Sam thinks. “The reason you didn’t think he’d be that bad was ‘cause Steve knows how to work the apple pie charm. I can’t tell you how many people he’s used it on to weasel his way out of trouble.” Quinn explains. “You, my friend, have become yet another victim of Steve’s charm. You fell for it hook, line, and sinker.”

Sam moans in exasperation and throws his hands up in the air dramatically. “And I ask, why didn’t you warn me about this before?”

“I’ve been married to Steve about a year now and knew him three years before that,” Quinn explains slowly. “And to this day, I still sometimes fall for it. And, honey, if you think he works in bad on you then you don’t want to know how much he ramps it up when he’s in trouble with me. If it makes you feel better, you’ll build up a little immunity to it.” She pauses. “I think that maybe after I’ve been married to him…oh, a hundred years or so? Maybe then I’ll be safe.”

A basket of tortilla chips and two little bowls of salsa are placed between them. “I’m doomed,” Sam laments and she salutes him with her chip before she dunks it in some of the salsa and eats it. He watches her for a second before he almost absentmindedly says, “Hey, next time we do lunch, remind me to make it instead so you don’t have to spend a fortune.”

“I’d rather it be me than you,” she replies immediately. “I eat a lot—more than Steve, actually—but that was probably obvious since I pretty much ordered the whole menu.” He snorts and she shrugs helplessly. “My metabolism runs faster than his and it doesn’t help with how much we run around these days. I appreciate the sentiment, I do, but you’d be broke after a day or two if you tried to feed me. Besides, I invited you to lunch, so I’d die before I let you pay for it. I plan to pay for yours  _and_ mine, so yah know.”

“I don’t have a say in it, do I?”

“Absolutely not,” she answers cheerily.

“Guess you two have to be old-fashioned somehow,” Sam remarks with a chuckle.

“Manners aren’t supposed to be some old-fashioned notion. Manners are manners and you should have them no matter what year you were born,” she explains and that only amuses him more. She may’ve channeled her ma there. “I hate to break it to people, but there’ve always been rude and nasty ass people who don’t have no kind of manners in every decade. And can someone tell me what it is with everyone lately and their obsession over this whole ‘are you and your husband modern or old-fashioned?’ We’re not one or the other. We’re…us.”

“That you are,” Sam says quietly and fondly. “That you are.” He moves away from where he’s leaned over the table a bit to make room for the waitress that carefully places their hot plates in front of them. A few bites into her quesadilla, he says, “I’m sorry if I pushed a button.”

She waves him off. “You don’t have to be sorry, Sam. I ain’t offended. Besides, I’m used to this by now. People have made all kinds of assumptions about me since the war. Steve and Bu—” she makes a face and corrects quickly with, “Steve and me had some assumptions about each other, y’know. He heard Kentucky and I heard Brooklyn and it was like we were from two completely different worlds. He saw a hick, I saw an uppity city slicker, but we were polite not to say it in those words,” she jokes and Sam laughs.

“Love at first sight, huh?”

“We’ve had our hurdles.” Some have been more recent than others, but she decides not to mention that. “We’ve had some extremely difficult and extremely weird hurdles,” she adds because she can’t help it. She and Steve have really weird lives. “Still, we made it out here on the other side. It only took seventy years, ice, and some aliens, but here we are.”

“Oh, it  _only_ took seventy years, ice, and some aliens.”

“That’s why I said weird, too.” She pauses to push some food around on her plate. She doesn’t want to make lunch heavy, but she wants Sam to know how much she appreciates him, too—especially now. “But everyone’s weird. _You’re_ weird.” No. Oh,  _God_  no. That did not come out how it was supposed to. “Weird isn’t necessarily  _bad_ ,” she quickly tries to remedy when his brows almost lift up to his hairline. “But normal people wouldn’t have a normal lunch with people like me and Steve. People can’t treat us like normal anymore, it seems. So…this was my backwards way to thank you. It’s nice to have a new friend.”

“Yeah,” he agrees fondly. “It  _is_ nice to have new friends.”

\---

Quinn literally has only one foot in the door when her phone starts to vibrate in her pocket and when she pulls it out, the name _Charlotte_ reminds her that she never followed up with Lotte who had a shovel on standby for Quinn, bless her heart. She thinks about whether or not she should avoid the call—which probably makes her a bad person, but that’s already been established multiple times today. In her defense, who wants to admit that they have issues? Besides, Lotte doesn’t deserve to have Quinn unload on her. But, of course, if she doesn’t talk to Lotte then it’ll only spur Lotte on and she’ll call over and over. If that doesn’t work, Lotte will have Andrea take a shot at it. Worse yet, Lotte may skip Andy and sick Sophia or Josie on Quinn. The Hayden clan absolutely adores Lotte and has taken her as one of their own, so they’d bend over backwards to make her happy.

She answers the call at the last possible second while she closes the door behind her. Before she can even put a word in, Lotte blurts, “I don’t think I want to ride horses anymore,” which makes Quinn freeze in place. Her heart also probably stops for a second or two.

Here’s the deal—when Andy decided that she wanted to move to New York for school, Quinn was ecstatic, no doubt about that, but it also made her paranoid. Well, it made her more paranoid than usual. They didn’t even need to ask because of course Quinn would’ve done it anyway, but both Liam and Tommy made Quinn swear she would take care of Andy while she was up in New York. Andy is the baby of the Hayden clan now and she’s far away from Kentucky where the rest of the family is situated at. When Nick wanted Quinn and Steve to move to D.C and leave Brooklyn behind, it made Quinn’s paranoia skyrocket, so she made Andy and Lotte, who had moved in with her, come up with some kind of safety precautions.

So, when Lotte, a lover of horses that constantly salivates over the chance to take a ride down to Kentucky where Quinn still holds onto the old Jackson horse farm, says that she doesn’t want to ride horses anymore, Quinn immediately knows there’s a problem. “Oh?” Quinn needs to act normal here because if there’s anyone on the other end with Lotte, they need to know that Quinn doesn’t know what’s up. It could have serious consequences for Lotte if Quinn messes up on this call. “What made this come about?”

“This is my sophomore and I feel like a completely different person now that I’ve been away from Texas. I’m an adult now,” Lotte explains carefully. “I’m not a kid anymore, so I need to leave the childish bullshit behind, don’t you think? I may even throw out my Disney collection.”

So, this is serious business then. People don’t have complete switches in personalities and Quinn’s had to pull Steve and Lotte away from Disney marathons before. “I see,” Quinn whispers in response. “Is Andy there with you? Have you talked to her about this yet?”

“No. Andy went to classes today and I stayed home. I’m scared to leave because I think I have a cold, but I’m bored and wanted someone to talk to about my epiphany. Oh, but I did text her to make sure she made it to school okay since I wasn’t there to walk with her and she’s there.”

“Good.” It’d be best for there not to be too many people around when she starts to bust heads. Have no doubt, when Quinn makes it up there, heads will roll. “I could come and talk with you about this…if you’re okay to wait about five hours. We can spend the weekend with each other,” Quinn offers it but it’s more of an assurance to Lotte that Quinn’s on the way. She only wishes there was a faster way to make it to New York, but she doesn’t have any planes on standby the way Tony does. “I can even have your uncle come up with me and you two can bond over art or whatever.”

“No,” Lotte protests quickly but does it calmly. “I don’t think he should come. Girls weekend only, okay? I’ll probably be embarrassed when this is all over, anyway.”

With such a simple conversation, Lotte has dropped a lot of information to Quinn—Lotte is too scared to leave the apartment, but whoever’s after her isn’t apparently after Andy because Andy made it to her classes okay, and for some reason Lotte doesn’t want Steve there. The stalker doesn’t know Lotte the way Quinn does, so if they overheard this conversation, they wouldn’t suspect much. These are the problems that kids off in school probably have. Quinn wouldn’t know—she had to deal with dead soulmates when she was at her old alma mater.

“Girls weekend it is, then,” she confirms. “Guess it’s lucky he isn’t here, but you know I would’ve called him to make him come home early if you needed me to. Okay, this’ll be our little secret for now. Maybe you should let Andy know to study at the library. You know she’ll worry herself sick if she comes home and you’re upset.”

“Good idea.” Lotte’s voice finally starts to waver when she quickly adds, “Hey, Aunt Quinn, I know you haven’t been my aunt a super long time, but I love you, okay?”

“You know I love you, too, sweetheart. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

Whoever has Lotte scared, they better pray this is a simple mix-up, because if someone made the idiotic mistake to threaten Quinn’s family then they’ll be very, very sorry. And God forbid if they’ve hurt either of her nieces because there won’t be any corner of the earth they can hide in that will save them from Quinn’s wrath.

\---

Quinn makes her way around the block probably ten times before she decides to approach the apartment complex. She only needs the once to remember what the exit routes she and Steve came up with are. The rest of the trips around the block are for reconnaissance, to see if she can spot anyone suspicious. The problem is that it’s late in the afternoon, so people have started to make their way home from classes or from work—this is why Quinn hates rush hour.

She’s learned from the best of the best—which is Natasha—about how to be a top-notch spy and her clothes prove it. No one would probably notice her, even if she wasn’t dressed as a hipster, but she has to scale up the fire escape to sneak inside Andy and Lotte’s apartment, so she throws up her hood to be safe. She knows she does Natasha proud because she blends in seamlessly since there are no shouts of alarm from the main street as she breaks into the apartment. 

The window she forces open is the one to the bedroom. The bedroom itself looks relatively untouched and when she takes a deep breath, there’s no smell of blood in the air to hint toward any violence. She approaches the door and, with one hand, opens it. The other hand she uses to pull out the pistol she tucked into her waistband before she left her car.

As Quinn quietly makes her way out of the room, she hears someone shout from what Quinn pinpoints as the kitchen, “I told you not to make contact with her. I said I’d do it myself when I was ready, didn’t I? What did you tell her? _What did you say to her?_ ”

“You know what I said,” Lotte points out calmly with a tone meant to soothe the other person. Quinn suspects there’s a weapon involved because a person only uses that tone of voice when they desperately want to make sure the situation doesn’t escalate. “You’ve listened to all my calls since you’ve been here.”

“What I heard may not be what she heard,” the other person snaps. “She’s smart. She’s Quinn Hayden. It was some kind of code. She knows I’m here, doesn’t she? I told you not to have her come here—not until I was ready and I was sure she wasn’t followed. You’ve ruined it all and I’m dead now. Do you understand that? I’m dead.”

Quinn, near the doorway of the kitchen now, stops a second to think. She knows that voice. It takes her a few more seconds to match it to a face. “Isabella Robertson,” she realizes out loud. She steps out from the safety of her secrecy and into the open kitchen. She’s quick to tuck her pistol back in the waistline of her pants before Isabella can completely turn around. Quinn puts her hands up in the air when her earlier theory proves to be true and Isabella points her own weapon at Quinn.

“ _You_ ,” Isabella snarls at Quinn. It may be a shock to some people, but Quinn pays attention sometimes, and she can see that Isabella’s really upset. There are tears on her face that she tries to scrub away and with her puffy, red-rimmed eyes, she’s been in tears a lot recently. She looks worse for wear—looks exactly like someone on the run would. But, Quinn notices, her aim stays steady and true in a way that makes Quinn suspect Isabella hasn’t ever been strictly a desk jockey. Normally, if someone’s upset and desperate, they shake a lot, even if they have a gun in their hand. Quinn may need to talk her way out of this one because she doesn’t think she could take down Isabella in such a small space and not have someone end up hurt.

“Me,” she murmurs absentmindedly as her eyes quickly move over to check on Lotte. Other than the caution she watches Isabella with, Lotte doesn’t look like she’s been hurt. She’s in her art overalls with the paint splattered on them, there’s an open laptop and two plates on the table. “Lotte,” she starts slowly and closes her eyes when it dawns on her that the other plate probably wasn’t Andy’s since there’s dinner on it, not breakfast. She’s overcome with fond exasperation. “Please tell me you didn’t sit here and feed the person who kidnapped you.”

“Okay, I won’t tell you,” she replies more cheerily than someone in her situation should. “But, in my defense, this lady said she worked at SHIELD with you. She told me a lot of information about you and Uncle Steve that no one else would really know unless they were friendly—or a hacker, I now realize. It was only after we had brunch that she dropped some truth bombs on me.” Lotte stops to think for a second after her spiel. “Are you considered kidnapped if you haven’t left the house?”

“I don’t want to hurt her,” Isabella interrupts lowly and Quinn’s focus moves back to Isabella. The temperature in the room drops from the look Quinn aims at Isabella and the other woman winces. “And as much as I hate you,” she tries to say bravely, “I don’t even want to hurt you, Doctor Hayden.”

Quinn wants to believe that, so she dares Isabella to prove it. “Then put your weapon down.” Isabella doesn’t move, so Quinn moves her aim to Isabella’s heart instead. “Isabella, think about Alice here. She was a wreck when she came to see me and you have her worried sick. With the way she talked about you, this isn’t the kind of person you are. Do you really think she’d want you to do this?”

“Alice—” Isabella’s hand starts to shake the tiniest bit now and her tears start back up. Good. Quinn thinks she’s started to break down Isabella’s defenses. “There’s so much about me she doesn’t know. She doesn’t know what I’ve had to do to survive. I’ve had to take up with…horrible people.” She tries to blink back her tears. “Then, I met Alice and I love her so much. And then—well, then she started to work with you. She—Alice _loves_ you, Doctor Hayden. She wants to be a better person when she’s around you and that makes me want to be a better person for her. They questioned my loyalties and I can’t even blame them. I can’t lie anymore. I wanted out, but there is no out with them.”

“Who are they?” Quinn tries to slowly move closer to Isabella, but her aim steadies and Quinn stops in her tracks. “Isabella, tell me who they are. Whatever trouble you’re in, I can help you.”

“You can’t help me,” she shouts. “No one can help me now. I made my bed and now I have to lay in it.” She takes a few seconds to sob and Quinn debates about whether she should take the chance and try to disarm Isabella. Then, like she read Quinn’s mind, Isabella steels herself again. “I can’t be saved. The most I can do now is to tell you the truth. You and your husband are the only people who can protect Alice, but you can’t do that when you two blindly trust everyone.”

“Funny you say that when you want me to trust you and haven’t put down that weapon,” Quinn retorts wryly.

Isabella closes her eyes and takes a deep breath. “Okay,” she whispers more to herself than anyone else. “That’s true. Okay. I’ll put it down.” And finally, she lowers the gun, puts the safety back on, and carefully places it on the table.

Quinn can’t help but slump a little in relief. The situation is a little easier to deal with now that there aren’t any guns out anymore. “ _What_ ,” she grits out because she is still very pissed that Isabella has caused all this trouble to start with, “the hell have you went and gotten yourself into? This can’t possibly be about that damn file. That shit was redacted to within an inch of its life.” It had disturbed her a little because she’d been sure it was only her old friend Victor Gottschalk that did the autopsy on Bucky’s body, but Zola’s name had been in there, too.

Isabella scoffs. “No, Doctor Hayden, this has never been about the file. It’s never been about what’s _in_ the file, I should say.” Quinn’s brows furrow in confusion. “You acted—that’s what it’s been about. You started to snoop around. You asked questions. You’re not complacent anymore and that’s what scares them. They can’t afford your attention. Not now,” she explains darkly.

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Quinn snaps and throws her hands up in exasperation. “This isn’t Voldemort. Just say their name, okay? Whoever your boogeymen are, let me know so I can put SHIELD on the case.”

“You can’t be this naïve, can you?” Isabella barks out a bitter laugh. “Don’t you understand by now? Have you really not worked it out? I can’t let you run off to SHIELD. It would make this a million times worse because they’re  _inside SHIELD_. Doctor Hayden, SHIELD is _compromised_.”

She opens her mouth to deny Isabella’s claim but immediately snaps it shut. It shouldn’t be true, but…is it that out of the realm of possibility? She looks back on the events of the last few days, takes a step back to analyze them with a new perspective, and…oh.  _Oh_. It all quickly starts to make sense. What else could explain the fact that her alpha level access was denied all of a sudden? Then, when Quinn demands Isabella’s help, Pierce makes an  _unexpected_ appearance to talk to her and coincidentally move her attention away from the file. Finally, when Quinn returns for the file, that  _one file_ is lost? SHIELD isn’t sloppy that way, not unintentionally.

Oh God. Oh  _God_. Someone—a collective someone is inside SHIELD. SHIELD is compromised. Quinn has to suck in some deep breaths to fend off the full blown panic attack. She’ll have to have flip shit later because she realizes that, “We need to have this talk somewhere else. I need to stash you, Lotte, and Andy someplace safe. If you really want to blow the whistle here then it’s my responsibility to protect you.”

“No,” Isabella says firmly. “I was lucky I hacked the surveillance equipment both here and at your apartment in D.C as fast as I did. I have the feeds on a loop, but they’re smart. Eventually, someone will notice you’re not home and they’ll come here. I reported your plan to exhume the body, so this will probably be the first place they’ll come to. I have my own security system set up, so I’ll know when they show up. If I had more time,” she sends Lotte a sharp look and Lotte sinks down in her seat, “then I could’ve done more. But there’s nowhere else safer than here.”

“Stark Tower,” Quinn proposes. “There’s no place safer than a place Tony Stark builds. I can call Tony and he’ll fly out here in his Iron Man armor. While you wait for him to show up, there’ll be an AI to watch your six. Nick can try and have an eye on everyone, have his ears everywhere, but he can’t out-hack Tony.”

Isabella mulls the idea over while Lotte balks at the words  _surveillance equipment_. “What the fuck?  _What the fuck?_ It’s only been, like, two days since she called me! When did anyone have time to sneak in here and put up hidden cameras? Oh my God, we had  _sex_. Someone watched us have sex.” Quinn’s face scrunches up because she knows that Andy and Lotte are adults and all, but she doesn’t need to hear about that any more than they want to hear about her and Steve. “Wait. Hold on.” Lotte squints at Quinn. “How are  _you_  so calm about this? Have you seriously known about how your place is wiretapped this whole time…and you’re okay with it?”

Quinn tries to think about how she can explain this to Lotte. “You ever see that movie  _Red_? Y’know, it’s the one that stars Bruce Willis and the CIA puts a hit out on him and his old squad because they knew too much top-secret shit?” Lotte’s eyes widen and Quinn nods somberly. “Yeah, I’m basically Bruce Willis in this scenario…but with more hair. I know too much about SHIELD’s secrets for him to take any chances. Nick is a little smarter than the CIA, so he knows he wouldn’t win if he tried to take me on—not when I have the Hulk at my back—but if it makes him feel better to bug my apartment then it’s whatever.”

“Besides, you obviously don’t know as much about SHIELD as you should,” Lotte helpfully adds. Quinn scowls and Lotte puts her hands up defensively. “What? It’s true! Don’t look at me like that!” She clears her throat. “Let me make sure I have my head wrapped around this. The new plan is to pick Andy up from the library, head to Stark Tower, and hopefully  _not_ die on the way there due to secret shady government organizations.” Both Quinn and Isabella nod—Isabella, however, seems reluctant about it. “Good. Let’s do this.”

\---

Before they leave the apartment, Isabella insists that both Quinn and Lotte turn off their cell phones and leave them behind. Should someone realize that Quinn’s not at home in D.C then at least they won’t be able to track Quinn down immediately, Isabella explains when Lotte opens her mouth to complain. Quinn’s not sure why it didn’t come to her until that exact moment, but she remembers that she said in her _wiretapped_ apartment that she was headed to see Lotte.  _Whoever_ —because it’s not like she can say SHIELD since she doesn’t really know who SHIELD is anymore—listened in on her apartment earlier may very well already know where Quinn is.

One breathless second, Quinn realizes how much she’s messed up here. She’s become complacent when she never ever should have and it’s come back to bite not Quinn herself, but her family which is what matters most to Quinn. Isabella assures Quinn that she’s been hacked into SHIELD’s equipment all day and wiped that part of the tape clean the second she knew Lotte called Quinn. It eases Quinn’s panic, but she’s no less disturbed. The second she has the chance, she’ll need to call Steve. Fuck, fuck, fuck. What if they try to take down Steve? SHIELD has done tests on Quinn and Steve and SHIELD knows their weaknesses.

The walk to the library isn’t much of a trek, but on their way there, it becomes pretty clear that both Isabella and Lotte are scared out of their minds. Lotte is a civilian who, as far as Quinn knows, has never been in this kind of situation, so her reaction doesn’t surprise Quinn. Now, as for Isabella, it comes as a surprise that she hasn’t been trained better. Or…maybe Isabella  _is_ trained but she’s never been in the heat of battle. Whatever the reason behind her lack of experience, Isabella acts in a way that’s so painfully sketchy Quinn’s shocked they haven’t been tracked down already.

Quinn herself finds it easier to focus and stay calm in a situation like this when the safeties of others—especially family—are on the line. Still, Isabella and Lotte start to push her patience. Quinn can feel a stress headache on the horizon and she thinks it’s physically impossible for that to happen with her serum. Because she’s about to snap, Quinn conversationally says, “I must be the absolute most oblivious person on the face of the planet if I wasn’t able to make you the second I saw you, Isabella.” Then, to both of them, she advises, “Never become spies, ladies. You’re both terrible at it.”

“How dare you?” Lotte puts a hand over her heart like Quinn’s shot her there. “Have we been brutally murdered yet? No, we have not. You want to know why, Aunt Quinn? Because of my awesome spy skills, that’s why.”

There’s no reason to be mad at either of them, Quinn reminds herself. They’re both scared and if Quinn’s honest here, she’s nervous herself. The tiniest misstep and then Isabella’s…employer would rain hellfire down on their heads. They could already know about Quinn’s presence here, so if a hit comes, it could be from anyone and come from anywhere. This is exactly why she’s always been a better soldier than spy. Out on a physical battlefield, the enemy is dead ahead. With spies, the battlefield is everywhere.

“Here’s what we’re about to do,” Quinn says after she collects her patience again. “Lotte, you’ll tell us about school with your same normal enthusiasm and Isabella, you’ll be very invested in what she says. We need to act normal. We can’t stick out like sore thumbs—which, by the way, is what we look like at this exact moment. No one’s clocked me yet and I’d like to keep it that way. One person takes a selfie with me and it’s all over the internet after a minute.”

Isabella stares at Quinn like she popped a second head. “Do you really think that that’s that easy to do? Do you know what’s at stake here if I screw up? They’ll kill me. Worse, they’ll kill Alice and  _then_ kill me. And I’m—” she closes her eyes for a second and then quietly confesses, “I’m terrified they’ll wake  _him_ up. They don’t want to, but they’re desperate now, and they’ll do whatever they need to do to keep me away from you. If they haven’t woken him up, they will soon, and I’ve seen what’s left of the people they’ve sent him after.”

It feels like she should remind Isabella that, “I’m a super soldier. No one can hurt you when you’re with me. Do you understand that? This…assassin or whatever, they’re only human. Uh, well, I’m human, too—you know what I mean. They’re not enhanced like me. They don’t stand a chance.”

“He  _is_ enhanced. He’s  _their_ super soldier.”

Quinn stops dead in her tracks and now she’s the one to stare at Isabella like she’s lost her mind. “There are no other super soldiers.” There are no  _successful_ super soldiers, anyway. Anyone that’s tried to recreate the serum has ended up dead or worse—one Doctor Bruce Banner can attest to how it’s sometimes worse than dead.

“You had no idea that SHIELD was compromised, so obviously there’s a lot you don’t know.”

Okay, Quinn has to reluctantly let Isabella have a point. “Touché,” she concedes. “Who is it that you’re so much more scared of than your shady bosses?”

“The Winter Solider.”

About a minute or two, there’s silence other than the noise that comes from the hustle and bustle of the street. While Quinn tries to wrap her head around the bombshell Isabella dropped, Lotte chimes in with, “I know this is really serious business and all, but that name is cool as shit.”

“Yes, Charlotte, this  _is_ serious business,” Quinn snaps and Lotte recoils. If Quinn had a scrap of patience before, it’s lost now. Damn it, damn it, damn it. She covers her face with her hands and laughs at the absurdity of it all. Really, how could her week possibly become  _any worse_? “The Winter Soldier,” she repeats as her eyes move back to Isabella. “I don’t know much, that’s true, but I do know that I met the Winter Solider in the  _sixties_.”

“You met him in the sixties…and here  _you_  are, over fifty years later, physically the same as you were then.”

“Because my super soldier serum keeps me healthy and fuckin’ vibrant,” Quinn snarls. “So, unless the Winter Solider has this same exact brand of serum then there’s no way he’s the same person I met back then and in—Jesus, when was it? I faced him down in 2009, too.” It’s impossible. It has to be impossible. “Steve’s serum has never been successfully recreated. Even this serum of mine is a defective version. Mine was created by Arnim Zola of Hydra—” she stops because she can’t breathe.

This is what Quinn knows: she has faced down the Winter Solider two times, once in the sixties and once a few years back. Both times, the man had a metal arm with the same red star on the bicep. It was hard to tell with the mask he wore, but the shape of his face seemed to be the same. Those eyes had haunted her both times. Hell, even his hair seemed to be the same shade of dark brown though it was longer when she last saw him. Truthfully, he was always strongerthan her. He whooped her ass the first time they met and she lasted longer the second time, but he still put her down. Steve, another super soldier, is the only person that’s beaten her that way.

This is what Isabella tells Quinn: SHIELD has been compromised. If Pierce came down to supposedly distract Quinn then she could probably assume he’s affiliated with this group. To have someone in their ranks that’s so high up…it would take a very, very long time to dig in that deep. And by a long time, she means decades. Also, it doesn’t seem like a mere coincidence that Zola’s name has come up multiple times since she went to hunt down that file. When she went to save Bucky back then, Zola had been around. Quinn swallowed her pride and went to the newly formed SHIELD for help and it took her all not to wring that little rat’s neck. Peggy had invited him _inside_ SHIELD and he’d been the bane of her existence for decades afterward.

Quinn knew it then and, more than ever, knows now that she should’ve killed Zola.

“Who are they?” Quinn questions hoarsely. “Who’s inside SHIELD?”

Isabella stares her dead in the eyes. “You know who it is.”

“Say it,” Quinn repeats fiercely. “ _Out loud_. Say it.”

Isabella opens her mouth to answer, but the shot of a gun rings out, and Isabella’s shoulder explodes with a burst of blood that paints the front of Quinn and Lotte’s shirts red.


	5. Panic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quinn really wishes she could catch a goddamn break already.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I SWEAR I AM NOT TRYING TO KEEP YOU GUYS FROM BUCKY ON PURPOSE. PLOT JUST KEEPS FUCKING HAPPENING. PLEASE DON'T BLAME ME. BLAME QUINN BECAUSE SHE CONTROLS THIS SHIT MORE THAN ME AT THIS POINT.  
> Yeah, so this chapter was getting way too long. Like, nearing 10,000 words long. I had to cut it in half. Also, this part of the story really wasn't meant to have Tony in it. I meant for him to come back in during Age of Ultron, like in canon, but then in true Tony Stark fashion, he pushed himself into this story. He won't make much of an appearance in this chapter and he'll really only be in the first half of the next, but you get to see Tony!  
> As always, I hope you enjoy this. I promise that Bucky's coming soon. I swear he is. Just...please be patient, my children. I love y'all!

There’s one shriek, then another, and then more people around them start to scream in terror when they process someone’s been shot. Isabella stares down at her shoulder like she can’t believe what’s happened, touches it like she needs to make sure, and then drops like a sack of potatoes. Quinn moves into overdrive and instinctively moves to shove Lotte down before any more bullets start to fly. A downed mark is harder to hit than someone on their feet. The street suddenly explodes with panic and the crowd desperately scrambles to move away from the blood and chaos—the perfect cover for Quinn to use to make her escape.

Quinn reaches down to pull Isabella’s arm over her shoulders and hauls Isabella up into her arms. As she sprints with Isabella and ducks into the closest alleyway, she prays that people are so scared they don’t immediately notice where the wounded woman went. She also desperately hopes that the shooter was unable to see where they ran off to with their low position and cover from the cluster of the crowd. They’ll have to move soon, but Quinn needs to slow Isabella’s bleeding down.

Lotte was able to recover pretty quickly and she launches to her feet so she can haul ass behind Quinn. While she does, she chants, “Oh, shit. Oh, shit. Oh, shit, shit, shit.” Quinn tries to shush her because the crowd is already almost cleared out and the noise from the street has started to die out with it. Lotte continues to curse, but at least does it more quietly. Gently as she can, Quinn bends down on a knee and props Isabella against the brick wall. She pulls off her jacket, balls it up, and presses it to Isabella’s shoulder since that wound needs some pressure on it.

Well, now they’re in a real pickle, aren’t they? Since this is only a shot to the shoulder, Isabella should live to see another day, but not if her wound is left to bleed out. Isabella needs immediate medical attention and Quinn’s a doctor, yes, but she has no supplies available to help with this. Unless they split up, there’s no way they can pick up Andy from the library. Quinn refuses to split up because no matter how they do it, it’s a bad idea. It wouldn’t matter if she decides to let Lotte take Isabella to the hospital or let Lotte pick Andy up—in the end, Lotte is a civilian and Quinn will not let her be alone with a shooter on the loose.

“Go,” Isabella croaks and moves to replace Quinn’s hand with her own and puts pressure on the wound herself. Quinn blinks at her, confused, so Isabella explains, “Go ahead without me.”

Maybe it makes her a bad person, but Quinn comes at Isabella’s idea with a tactical viewpoint rather than an emotional one. She’s ashamed that she’s relieved Isabella was the one who said it first. This plan would be the perfect distraction for Quinn to make a break for it, pick up Andy, and drop her and Lotte off at a safe place. Honestly, it could actually take the attention off Quinn and Lotte entirely since, technically, Isabella is the person the shooter is after here.

“Are you sure about this?” Quinn checks like she hasn’t already accepted to follow this plan of action. Isabella nods and Quinn reaches out to squeeze Isabella’s other shoulder in a show of support. “Okay. You know where Stark Tower is. You can’t miss it. It has the A on it. If you can make it there, you’ll be safe.”

Quinn was sure Lotte wouldn’t have been able to hear it, but her panicked curses stop mid-sentence. “No,” she barks. “Oh my God, I can’t believe we’re about to have this discussion. No, no, no. Absolutely not. I hate the martyr trope. It’s stupid and unnecessary. We can deal with this, okay? There’s always another way.”

“The person that shot me didn’t see only me. They would’ve seen Doctor Hayden and they would’ve seen you, too. They know who you are and they definitely know who Andrea Frances Hayden is.” Lotte pales at the mention of Andy’s name. “These people will do whatever they have to do to keep Doctor Hayden away from the truth. You know Doctor Hayden better than me, so can you think of any better way to distract her than to kidnap someone in her family?” The answer to Isabella’s question is obvious. Quinn would do whatever she needs to in order to keep the people she loves safe…even if it means to let the rest of the world burn. “You need to hurry because they’ll find out where she is soon. They’ll take her and I know how they work. They won’t keep her alive.”

“But—”

“This is what they do, Charlotte. They ruin lives. They’ve already done so much to ruin Doctor Hayden’s and that’s not fair. They have destroyed countless lives and I…I’m ashamed to say that I’ve helped. My part was small, but I helped and that’s on me. This is my punishment for the part I’ve played in all this.” Quinn slowly rises to her feet and has to accept the fact that she’ll probably never know exactly how her life’s been ruined. Hell, even if she had the time to hear it, would she really want to know? “Earlier, over lunch, you said that you wanted to marry Andrea. Did you mean that?”

“Yeah,” Lotte answers quietly. “Not now, but God, I really, really want to. I want to marry her. I want to wake up to her sometimes rank morning breath every day and I’d let her steal all the blankets if it’d make her happy. I’d love to be a housewife only so I can watch her smile when she comes home to dinner. I want to settle down and adopt babies with her. I’ve never wanted any of this sappy shit until I met her. I’m—she’s—” Lotte, overwhelmed, covers her face and Quinn thinks it’s to secretly wipe away her tears. “I love her and she’s my soulmate.”

“Alice makes me want that, too,” Isabella admits. She reaches out to take Lotte’s hand. “But I’ve helped bad people do terrible, horrible shit, so I won’t ever live that dream with her, and I’ve accepted that. I know it won’t cancel out the bad, but what I can do—to repent a little—is make sure that you and Doctor Hayden can make it to Andrea in time. I helped snuff out the dreams and lives of others when I helped these people, so the least I can do is protect your dream.”

The least Quinn can do is hand over the pistol tucked in her waistband to Isabella. “Thank you.” And Quinn truly means that from the bottom of her heart. As she passes the weapon over to Isabella, Quinn puts her hand on top of Isabella’s for a second. “Thank you,” she repeats. “I know Alice would be proud of what you’ve done. I know it ain’t worth much, but I’m proud of you, too.”

Quinn meets Isabella’s eyes that blaze with determination. “Promise me, Quinn, that you’ll remember who you are. Remember where you came from and what you’re made of. They’re scared of you. They’ve always been scared of you. They’ll do whatever they can to try and chain you back down. They know your weaknesses by now, so they’ll hurt you. But you can’t let them win. You can’t.”

“I won’t,” Quinn promises.

“You need to expose this. You need to expose _them_. Once you have them out in the open, tear them apart. Burn it all down. We both know the truth. You’re _Fenrir._ You’ve always been Fenrir. I think it’s about fucking time that you remind them why they gave you that name in the first place.”

\---

 _Fenrir_ bounces around inside her head. No one should know about that. The whispers of that name were supposed to have died out with the last of Hydra. For all their obsession with the occult and myths, they would’ve been better to name her Hercules instead because if two more heads popped up, she cut those off, too. Fenrir…she never did completely understand why they’d named her after that. Fenrir was some fearsome wolf in Norse mythology that broke free from chains and swallowed up the sun and everyone else in the way. Hydra hadn’t put any chains on her. The best reason behind the name that she’d been able to come up with is because they’d taken her (soul)mates away and she’d made every Hydra operative howl in pain before they died.

As soon as she thinks that cursed name, _Hydra_ starts to buzz around in her head, too—like someone shook a wasp’s nest and shoved it inside her brain. It isn’t possible. It can’t be true. Quinn had killed them all. Every person that swore an oath to the Red Skull, she tore them apart…except for one, she now realizes. One survived because SHIELD protected him with Operation Paperclip. They were so sure he could do some good for the world and look what he’s caused now. That… _rat_ —no. Rat is too nice. Zola was a _disease_ and he infected SHIELD.

Quinn had wanted to honor her soulmates she’d lost in the war, had wanted to protect and ensure a peaceful future for people like Liam and Sophia, like Tommy and Jackie, and now like Andy and Lotte. _And Hydra had been inside SHIELD the whole time_. How did she not realize this sooner? How did _no one know_?

Quinn tries to make it to the library and there it is, across the street, but she can’t breathe. Her heart races so fast that she thinks it’ll explode. She stumbles into the closest alleyway and rubs a hand across her chest, like that could possibly slow it down. She needs to focus, but all she can think about is how she fucked it up this time. She doesn’t know if she can recover from this one. Who can she trust? Anyone on the street could work for them. Anyone in SHIELD could work for them.

Fuck. Oh, fuck. Shit. Steve is on a mission. She has no idea when he’ll be back. Would Hydra assume Isabella told Quinn about them? She has no doubt that Hydra would hurt Steve to twist Quinn into submission. Isabella said Hydra would hurt her to keep her compliant. Maybe they wouldn’t try to take out Steve, but Quinn has very human people that she loves. What if they went after her family?

Lotte shakes Quinn’s arm and Quinn turns her head to look at Lotte. Quinn watches Lotte’s mouth move, but can’t hear the words. They’ll hurt everyone Quinn loves. Back then, Hydra was full to the brim with cowards that had no problem to torture and murder innocent people and from what Isabella indicated, that’s still the same. Quinn can’t even wrap her head around how much resentment toward her that they’ve built up over the last seventy years. No one is safe. First, they took Bucky. They tried to take Steve, but can she hold onto him with Hydra back around? They’ll destroy Quinn’s life because that’s what they’ve always done, isn’t it?

“ _Quinn Esther Hayden_ ,” Lotte screams in Quinn’s ear which ouch. Sometimes, enhanced senses hurt. Quinn winces, covers her ear, and takes an automatic step away. She doesn’t pay attention to her feet, so she trips over a trash can, and tumbles backward with a squeak.

Physical sensation has always been the key to Quinn’s reality, so the headache from Lotte’s shriek and where her head knocks onto hard concrete pulls her back down to earth. She sits up and makes sure not to look Lotte in the eye while she tries to recover. She literally had a panic attack. When there’s absolutely no time to waste, she had a mental breakdown. Great, wonderful, isn’t that just so damn peachy. She thinks about how much time she’s wasted and almost has _another_ panic attack.

Lotte squats down in front of Quinn and her eyes are wide with her own terror. “Are you okay?”

“No,” Quinn decides to answer truthfully. “I was a little—” she stops and corrects herself with, “I was a lot overwhelmed.”

“I completely understand. Look, I know it’s a bad time, but I have to ask…since you broke down first, does that mean I have permission to do it, too? Because—” she plops down on her ass in front of Quinn and wraps her arms around herself. She looks the most vulnerable that Quinn’s ever seen her be before, but, on the other hand, this is probably the worst she’s ever seen Quinn at. “A lady that I only met today sacrificed herself so that I could live on to…to…basically love another day.”

“Does it help if you remember that she broke into your apartment and held you prisoner?”

“No,” Lotte answers miserably. Tears start to trickle down her cheeks and she moves to wipe them away quickly, but stops to stare at her sleeves. “I have blood on me,” she whispers hoarsely. Quinn can see it start to dawn on Lotte, the depth of this situation, and looks seconds away from her own panic attack. “I have blood on me because some mother fucker shot at us in the middle of the street. What the fuck? Fuck. Shit. Holy fuck shit—”

Quinn closes her eyes and takes a deep breath, takes another, and takes one more to help her calm down. Bitterly, she thinks about how this all started because she had a bad dream about Loki— okay, so it was probably more about her issue with how she failed to save her soulmate, but she’ll happily put the blame on Loki before she’d ever put it on Bucky. Anyway, she swears to God that the next time Thor is on planet, she’ll take him by the ear like ma used to do to her when she was in trouble, force him to take her to whatever hole they threw Loki in, and beat that asshole down until he’s black and blue.

Fury, that’s what she needs to focus on. Grief had almost swallowed her up once before, but then she dove deep down in her emotions and latched onto that wrath. It wasn’t healthy then and it isn’t healthy now, but it leaves her with a purpose, and that’s what she needs now more than ever. If she sits around to bellyache then everyone would die and that’s not about to happen on her watch, no sir. See? She knows how to prioritize.

“Hey, do you have a shirt on underneath that hoodie?” Quinn asks Lotte after she’s steeled herself. Lotte stares at Quinn, confused. “Take off the hoodie. It wouldn’t be smart to walk into the library with blood on our clothes.” Lotte doesn’t move, so maybe she’s in shock still. Quinn reaches out to wipe away Lotte’s tears and reminds Lotte, “We have to save Andy, remember? Then, when we’re at Stark Tower, you can chill in Tony’s penthouse and stare out at the skyline and you can cuddle and cry all you want.”

“God, you know me so well,” Lotte blurts and gives one hysterical laugh before she sniffles and starts to collect herself. “How the _fuck_ can you handle life as a superhero? How do you deal with all this stress? This is shitty. I’m exhausted and I haven’t even punched anyone in the dick.”

“I’m not a superhero, so you know.” Quinn starts to stand to her feet and holds out a hand for Lotte to take. “Now, how I deal with the stress is I think about how, at this very second, there are two people that some assholes want to hurt. I love these two people very much and they don’t have a super soldier serum like I do to heal them fast if they end up hurt. I have power and it’s my responsibility to use that power to help those who can’t protect themselves.”

The answer surprises Lotte apparently because her mouth parts in response. There’s this…look on her face that worries Quinn a little. Determination, but the kind Steve has before he pulls some kind of stupid stunt. “And you think you’re not a superhero,” Lotte whispers under her breath. “You’re an idiot. You’re such a superhero that it’s kinda painful. That was literally the most inspirational speech I’ve ever heard in my entire life.”

Quinn hums. “I don’t know, Lotte, that speech about Andy bein’ your soulmate was pretty fuckin’ inspirational.”

“You were my hero for literally a second and then you ruined it. You’ve now officially taken the trophy for Top Asshole from Uncle Steve. I hope you’re proud of yourself.”

\---

 _Finally_ , they make it to the library. The trip between the apartment and the library has to be maybe the third worst trip of her entire life—behind the trip to the Alps where they lost Bucky and behind the trip to their final assault on the Red Skull where she lost Steve. If they’d only been shot at, it probably wouldn’t have been so bad—which is a fucked up sentence to say, but it’s the truth. Quinn can handle bullets, but when she found out that Hydra’s been hidden inside SHIELD? Yeah, the trip quickly shot to the top of the shitty trip list.

“Can you find her without your phone?” Quinn questions when they walk past the doors.

“Dude, yeah, of course I can. We always sit in the exact same place. It’s this one section on the very top floor that no one ever really comes to. We’ve totally fucked each other between the bookshelves and no one ever knew,” she explains proudly.

“Except now,” Quinn retorts dryly.

“Except now,” Lotte agrees too damn cheerily.

Quinn was sure her nervousness would settle down once they were inside the library, but it ramps up to overdrive on the hike up to said floor where Andy is supposed to be. She realizes that Andy could’ve already been kidnapped. Without a doubt, Hydra has the same resources that SHIELD does, and Quinn knows it wouldn’t take much time for SHIELD to pinpoint Andy’s location. Anyone in SHIELD could be Hydra and Andy would be none the wiser about that, so they could come up with any bullshit excuse to make her come with them.

Seriously, her nerves are _shot_. She needs a drink—a really, really, really stiff drink that would kill a normal person if they tried to drink it.

The need to be in alcoholic coma does drop considerably as soon as Andy comes into view. This is better. Obviously, she won’t feel completely safe until they’re at Stark Tower where they have Jarvis to watch their backs, but she has Andy and Lotte both physically with her now. So, if anyone wants to try and hurt them, they’ll have to deal with one seriously pissed off super soldier. Lotte, too, is relieved to see Andy—probably more than Quinn—because she tackles poor Andy from behind. The two of them almost fall over the table with how hard Lotte launches herself at Andy.

“What the _hell_?” Andy hisses. She squirms in an attempt to turn around in Lotte’s arms and see who has a hold of her. Quinn notices immediately that Andy’s eyes are puffy and red from where she’s cried recently. “Lotte?” Andy questions quietly and reaches up to take Lotte’s cheeks in her hands. “ _Lotte_?” Quinn hates to intrude on the intimate moment, but look on Andy’s face worries Quinn. That expression…it’s the same kind of relief that Quinn and Lotte had when they saw Andy safe and sound.

“Hey, babe,” Lotte whispers almost shyly and tries to lean forward to kiss Andy.

Andy, apparently, isn’t swayed by the romantics. Before Lotte can kiss her, Andy takes Lotte by the shoulders and pushes her away to snap, “ _Charlotte Nez_.” Lotte winces because when the whole name is broken out, that means real trouble. “Lotte, what the fuck have you went and done now? Why are you here? There were men from SHIELD who told me that you and Auntie Quinn were in an accident and…and…” she suddenly wraps her arms around Lotte and buries her face in the crook of Lotte’s neck for a second. “They told me you were hurt—” she lifts her head up and her eyes finally land on Quinn. “—and why is Auntie Quinn here, too?”

Quinn’s attention zeroes in on one particular detail. “SHIELD came to talk to you?” Goddamn it, she knew that, with her shit luck, they wouldn’t be out of the woods yet. “Andy, this is important, I need you to tell me more about the men. How many were there? Are they still here?”

“Wait,” Lotte interrupts and squints at Andy. “Did you say that SHIELD told you we were in an accident?”

“ _Yes_ ,” Andy explodes with and Quinn tries to shush her—not because they’re in a library but because she doesn’t need to attract the attention of those men if they’re still around. “What’s the matter with you two? They said you’d been _kidnapped_ , Lotte. They told me Auntie Quinn came to save you but that it went sideways and that someone was hurt. I was about to meet them—there’s four of them, by the way, but I don’t know why that matters. Anyway, I’m supposed to meet them downstairs because they said they’d drive me to the hospital and explain more on the way.”

“How much time did they give you?” She thinks Hydra won’t let Andy have much more time before they come back and hunt her down. They must be on a timetable of their own, too.

“I don’t know, Auntie Quinn.” Andy throws her arms up in frustration. “They probably assumed that I’m a decent person who loves her girlfriend and aunt and will hurry up so she can go see them at the hospital. Now, does either one of you want to explain why you’re _not_ in the hospital or why SHIELD thinks you are? Better yet, can maybe someone let me know what the hell is going on with you two?”

Technically, she could sneak out with Andy and Lotte undetected. Even if she hadn’t clocked a few on their way up to meet Andy, Quinn knows there are plenty of fire exits in the library. Hydra obviously doesn’t know that Quinn’s here because they would’ve sent more people. If they can hide inside SHIELD then they’re somewhat smart. But, hell, they can’t be too bright because they didn’t stay dead the first time Quinn wiped them out. They think they have the upper hand here and Quinn has a fierce need to put them in their place.

There’s also the issue of how this is serious business and Andy needs to know that if she wants to survive. “Andrea,” she starts seriously and Andy snaps to attention at the tone. “From the day you and your sister were born, I have loved you like my own and swore that I’d protect you both with my very life. Do you trust that I mean that?” Andy’s mouth drops a little in shock, but she nods. “Then I need you to trust me. I need you to do whatever I say. Do you understand?” Andy, because she’s a Hayden, doesn’t like to shut up and do as she’s told without a reason why. “We are not safe here, Andrea. I promise to answer your questions, but not until we’re in a safe place.”

“Hey,” Lotte whispers and reaches down to take Andy’s hand. Quinn sees how Lotte squeezes Andy’s hand hard. “This is really, really, _really_ serious. This is life and death serious. We need to listen to Aunt Quinn, okay?”

Whatever Andy searches for on Lotte’s face or in her eyes satisfies her enough. “Fine,” she concedes. “ _Fine._ But you two owe me an explanation as soon as possible.” Andy looks over at Quinn. “Okay, Auntie Quinn, what exactly is it that you want us to do?”

“For now, I need y’all to hide between the shelves,” Quinn orders. “Don’t move too far from where I am. If anyone comes too close, make a lot of noise—I’ll hear it. When I’m done, we’ll head to Stark Tower. This shouldn’t take too long. All I need to do is have a little chat with _SHIELD_.”

 

So, rather than Andy seated at the table, what Hydra finds in her place is Quinn. She immediately notes that all four men are present and accounted for. They’re all taken back by her presence, she knows, because she can see at least a flicker of it on even the most stoic face. One of them, definitely a rookie, trips and stumbles over his feet—a sloppy move on their part to have him with them, he’s an obvious weak link. Her eyes briefly move over the rest of them and other than a SHIELD patch, there’s no other identification on them. This was supposed to be an extraction.

“Gentlemen,” she drawls and then plasters a smile on, syrupy sweet. “How can I help y’all today?”

The oldest man between them is the one who steps forward, so she’ll assume he’s the superior officer on this particular operation. “Doctor Hayden,” he says but leaves it at that. Really, what can he say that won’t immediately incriminate them? He’ll wait, that’s his plan. Whatever assumptions she makes, he’ll roll with them and lie to cover their asses. He’s smart, she’ll hand it to him.

Quinn, however, is older and wiser. She doesn’t fall for his trap. “Gentlemen,” she repeats. “Does someone want to tell me what I can do for you today?” No one wants to answer her question, of course they don’t. Five minutes of complete and total silence then proceed to pass—very painful and awkward on Hydra’s part and extremely smug on hers. “No? Well,” she chirps and stands to her feet, “if that’s all then I’ll be headed on my merry way.”

Their desperation to know what she knows must win out, so the leader decides to finally talk. “The last I heard, you reported directly to the Triskelion in D.C. What has you all the way up here in New York City, ma’am?”

Another trap that she avoids easily. “A very dear friend of mine from the war is buried up here—James Buchanan Barnes, I’m sure y’all know him. Anyway, I came here to visit the cemetery, clean up the headstone, you know how it is,” she explains casually. A dare lies under the surface of her words—a challenge for him to call her out on her lie which she can quickly turn back around on him.

“Have you ever come into contact with an Isabella Robertson?”

Then, she plays dumb. “Robertson, Robertson,” she hums. “Well, I’m sure there’s more than one Robertson that I’ve met…but now that you mention it, there was someone with that name I met at the Triskelion. She worked the desk at records and helped me try to find an old file. Is _that_ who you mean?”

“That’s her,” he answers. And at last, he makes his fatal mistake. “Ma’am, she’s stolen some extremely sensitive material from SHIELD. Myself and my team were tasked with finding her before this information is accidentally or purposefully leaked. She skipped town and we’ve tracked her down here to New York City—Brooklyn, to be exact.” He clears his throat. “We have reason to believe that your great-niece’s roommate, Charlotte Nez, has been assisting Isabella Robertson with hiding from law enforcement. Since there’s no one home at your great-niece’s apartment, we came here to bring Andrea Hayden into SHIELD to speak with her about Charlotte’s activities. If you’d like to come with her, we can make arrangements—”

“Partner,” Quinn corrects coolly and he raises a brow. “Charlotte Nez is my great-niece’s romantic partner and that ain’t the only bad information you seem to have here. My great-niece is under the assumption that Charlotte and _myself_ are recovering from…oh, what was it? You said we were shot?” She crosses her arms over her chest. “So, sweetheart, how about you tell me what the truth is here, yeah?”

He flushes in chagrin and doesn’t look too happy about how she called him slick out. “I think there must’ve been some kind of miscommunication. Where is Andrea? I’m sure we can clear this up—”

“What’s also funny here is that I’ve been with Charlotte all afternoon. After I was done at the cemetery, I went to visit Andrea and Charlotte, so you’d think I would’ve noticed if she was aiding and abetting a _fugitive_. Since you know they live in Brooklyn then you know there’s not much room to play hide and seek. You’d also think I would really know if I’d been shot, too.” She takes a step closer to the leader and can see him shift uncomfortably. “Lie to me again, _agent_ ,” she dares lowly.

“You need to tell us where Charlotte Nez and Andrea Hayden is, Doctor Hayden,” the man snarls. “We were sent here by order of Secretary Alexander Pierce,” he adds.

“Do you know who I am? I am _Quinn Hayden_ and I helped make SHIELD, asshole. I have Alpha-level clearance which means that I’m on the same level as your Secretary Pierce.” she spits out. “I don’t answer to him and I sure as shit don’t answer to _you_. You better watch your goddamn mouth with me, do you understand me?” She takes a deep breath. It takes a lot not to knock the fucker back on his ass. But if she tries to assault him, he can use that as legal grounds to take her into custody. “Now, since I work with Director Fury more than Secretary Pierce and respect Nick, you can have _him_ call me and I’m sure we can settle this. Until then, you can turn around and walk your happy asses back to D.C. Have a nice day.”

\---

Stark Tower sure would make a prettier picture if Quinn wasn’t so damn pissed off. Not distracted anymore by shock and panic, the rage has finally set in—especially after those mother fuckers tried to kidnap Andy and then had the balls to lie about it to her face. That’s all they’ve done, she realizes. Hydra has scurried around underneath her feet like nasty little cockroaches and they’ve thrived for _seventy years_. She is furious. They will pay for this. She swears to God in heaven that she’ll make Hydra pay and when she’s done with them, this time there won’t be a scrap of them left.

Obviously, Quinn’s in a pretty foul mood when she busts past the main entrance of the tower. There’s no one in security who tries to stop her, but that could be because Jarvis saw her on the street and alerted them about who she is—he's smart that way. With Andy and Lotte close behind her, she heads directly for the private elevator that’ll send them on up to Tony’s personal floors.

Before the elevator doors have even completely slid closed, she barks, “Jarvis, be a peach and call Tony for me.”

“Immediately, Doctor Hayden,” Jarvis answers. Both Andy and Lotte jerk in surprise when the very sentient AI continues with, “While we wait for him to pick up, may I point out that I’ve detected trace amounts of blood on both you and your associate? Are you in need of medical attention and should I alert Mister Stark about the blood?”

“We weren’t hurt, but if you think that’ll make him pick up quicker then sure, let him know,” Quinn explains. “By the way, this,” she motions to Andy, “is my niece, Andrea Frances Hayden. And this,” she then waves toward Lotte, “is her partner, Charlotte Nez. They need a safe place to stay and I couldn’t think of any better place than a place where there’s you to hold down the fort, Jarvis.”

“Flattery, Doctor Hayden, will get you everywhere—or so Miss Potts says,” Jarvis replies and that makes her crack a little smile. “There are multiple empty suites in the tower at the moment. Someone will be sent immediately to prepare one for Miss Hayden and Miss Nez. I assure you they’ll be very comfortable in their stay with us.” Both Andy and Lotte mutter their nicknames which Jarvis, of course, hears. “Very sorry—Miss Andy and Miss Lotte,” he corrects. “In the meantime, you have full access to Mister Stark’s private penthouse.”

Andy, very quietly, asks Quinn, “Jarvis?”

“He’s the AI that Tony built. Any place that Tony spends a lot of time in, Jarvis is probably there. I have him on my phone, but I don’t have it with me because…y’know.” Once they could see the tower, both Lotte and Quinn explained to Lotte what’s happened since Quinn’s arrival in New York. Andy was _not_ happy that Lotte kept her out of the loop when Isabella broke into their apartment. “Anyway, he keeps Tony in line when Pepper and Rhodey aren’t around. If you have any problems with Tony, let Jarvis know.”

“So sorry to interrupt your praises, Doctor Hayden, but Mister Stark is on the line now,” Jarvis speaks up. “If you don’t mind, I’ll stop the elevator at his personal lab. You’ll be able to have a video conference with him. Once you’re done, you are more than welcome to continue where you left off.” Yeah, Jarvis was definitely created by Tony.

The elevator crawls to a stop and the doors slide open to reveal Tony’s personal lab. Construction on this new tower isn’t even completely done and yet, _somehow_ , Tony has already made a hot mess of this brand new lab. This must be where he comes when Pepper and Rhodey are away because the messier the lab is, the more time he’s spent in it, and Pepper and Rhodey are the only people who can pull him away from work. She tells herself the mess is a trademark of genius. She wonders if Doctor Banner’s lab looks like this, too.

There are a bunch of touch-screens spread around the lab, but there’s only one that’s not in power-saver mode, so she heads there. When she stands in front of it, she’s met by Tony’s face and…why does he look so happy? Didn’t Jarvis tell him there was blood involved? She thinks sometimes Tony’s a masochist, but he wasn’t a sadist the last time she checked. “Please tell me the reason why you’re in my tower is because you wanted a divorce and the reason you’re covered in blood is because you kicked his ass. Please, please, _please_ tell me that’s what happened. I have a bet with Rhodey.”

Quinn closes her eyes for a second, takes a deep breath, and rubs her forehead. “Sorry to be the bearer of bad news here, Tony, but you haven’t won the bet,” she informs him dryly. “My marriage is still intact. But, hey, stay tuned because after he hears about this shit storm I’ve found myself smack dab in the middle of, my marriage status is liable to change.” This could cause her a stress headache and she hasn’t had one of those in decades. “How soon can you be here?”

“Depends on how bad you need me,” he replies carefully. He’s not as amused as before—probably because he’s picked up on her bad mood. “Also depends on if you need an additional ass kicker on your team and it looks like you’re about to storm down someone’s castle.” He eyes her warily. “Exactly what kind of trouble are you in, my dear aunt?”

“As it turns out, my dear nephew, I’ve wasted my entire life away. SHIELD is compromised and it’s been compromised since pretty much the day it was born. And you know what’s even better, Tony? You want to know what the cherry on the top of this _fuck you_ sundae is? This whole time, it’s been _Hydra_. My one soulmate died in vain and Steve put that plane in the ice for _jack shit._ Do you know what this means? Seventy years and I’ve worked for _Hydra the whole time_.” No one should blame her if she sounds a little hysterical. Sure, she’s mad as hell, but don’t think she’s not upset, either.

All emotions drops off Tony’s face. “What?”

“I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. Who do I tell, huh? _Anyone_ could be with them. Steve’s on a mission and I have no way to contact him. They monitor it all. He’s dead in the water and so am I. Jesus Christ, I don’t know who to trust now—except you. I know I can trust _you_.” Great, the panic’s come back around. Goddamn it, she can’t be this emotional. It isn’t productive and she’ll end up dead if she doesn’t put a lid on it. “Tony, I need support,” she pleads.

Panic replaced Quinn’s anger, but Tony seems to have enough of it for two. Rage flashes behind his eyes and he works his jaw for a second. “Give me an hour,” he mutters dangerously and his face vanishes from the screen.

A tense silence settles in the room. Quinn doesn’t remember that both Andy and Lotte are with her until Lotte whispers, “Holy _shit_. Andy, oh my God, this’ll be the _third Avenger_ we meet. Do you think he’ll let me touch his armor?” Quinn thanks God for Lotte because she would’ve died of mortification otherwise. Now _both_ of her nieces have witnessed her nearly have a mental breakdown today. Quinn really doesn't think this day can get any fucking worse if it tried.

 


	6. We Should See the Alps

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quinn finally has herself a small reprieve, Tony is uncharacteristically vulnerable, and Quinn finally reunites with Steve.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don't think I've said this in a long time, which is a crime on my part, but I seriously want to thank everyone that leaves comments on the story, who bookmarks it, who leaves kudos, who sends me messages on the story's Tumblr page. You guys seriously have no idea how much I love you for that. It's what keeps me going. If I didn't get such a positive review and didn't have such dedicated readers, I really would've given up on this story a long time ago. So, seriously. **Thank you.**  
>  There's not really much to say about this chapter other than Tony has a brief cameo and displays some character development. This is the last we'll see of him, Andy, and Lotte for right now. You guys know what's coming the next chapter! Bwahahahaha!  
> Enjoy it and once again, I fucking love y'all. <3

So, there’s not much else to do other than wait which is, no doubt, what will drive Quinn over the deep end. She hates to wait. It makes her skin crawl when she has to sit around with her thumbs up her ass. Whether it’s his intention or not, Jarvis helps pull her out of her head when he insists she make the most of the tower’s amenities. She’s hesitant to waste time on a shower, but Jarvis is smarter than she’ll ever be and also apparently has more common sense and reminds her that bloodstained clothes tend to draw unwanted attention in public. She wants to point out that no one stopped them on the trip between the library and tower, but that was honestly probably because there wasn’t much distance between the two places and because of sheer, dumb luck. Besides, the blood on her clothes will start to stink up the place soon.

A little reluctant about it, Quinn concedes and heads down to another emptied suite on a different floor to take a shower. Unlike Quinn, both Andy and Lotte were way ahead of Jarvis and already scampered down to check out their own temporary suite, and they’ll probably take their own showers. Jarvis politely requests Quinn leave her clothes in the bedroom attached to the bathroom so someone can stop in to pick them up and have them washed—she’s happy he understands that she’d rather not take the chance and have someone sneak a peek of her in the shower when they come for her clothes. Jarvis informs her that, until her clothes are clean, there’s a bathrobe she can use in the meantime.

The shower, at the very least, wastes some time and keeps her mind preoccupied. She wonders how the hell this bathroom is already stocked—technically, it only has those little bottles that hotels use, but it’s there nonetheless. Why are there so many personal suites, anyway? Before it was trashed in the Battle of New York, this tower was supposed to be another Stark Industries branch. She hasn’t checked with Tony, Pepper, or Rhodey, but she assumed this new tower was made to be the same as the old one, simply another branch. Sure, she spends a lot of time at the Triskelion where her work is, but she doesn’t live there. Really, why the fuck does Tony have these suites?

Quinn steps out of the shower, mind full of questions, and walks to the bedroom in a towel where she proceeds to dry off and put on the bathrobe left on the bed. When she slips it on, she absentmindedly runs her hands over the material. It’s nice, she thinks—the fluffiness of it is on par with the one she wore at the hotel where she and Steve stayed at on their honeymoon. Her mind lingers on that thought. She plops down on the stripped bed, stares blankly at the wall, fiddles with the hem of the white bathrobe, and thinks about Steve.

Seriously, this has to be the weirdest reason for her to miss her husband, but God, does she miss Steve. She’s scared beyond belief on his behalf, too. Like she told Tony, when Steve makes it back from his mission, he’ll be headed directly into the lion’s den and has no idea about it. Isabella said that Hydra knows Quinn’s weaknesses, so Quinn has no doubt that Hydra’s taken what SHIELD’s learned about her serum over the years and exploited that. They could kidnap Steve, she bleakly realizes. Sure, they’d lose a lot of people in the process because her husband would never go down without a fight, but she thinks that Hydra could make him stay down. And her worry over his safety aside, she’s so unsure now. She’s the leader here and, yes, she knows how to be one—she’s been one countless times while he was in the ice—but she likes to have him there at her side. Lame as it may be, they’re a _team_ , damn it.

“Doctor Hayden,” Jarvis speaks up quietly. “You’ve mentioned multiple times to Mister Stark that you require an extremely high intake of calories due to your enhanced metabolism. I’m not sure when the last time you’ve eaten is nor how much energy you’ve exerted today, but I’ve had refreshments sent up to Mister Stark’s penthouse suite in case you require it. Miss Andy and Miss Lotte have both been notified, as well.”

She’s not totally sure if she’ll be able to keep any food down because of how sick with worry she is, but she needs to try. She’s run around like a chicken with its head cut off today and that does tend to burn a whole lot of calories. Bless Jarvis and his little, mechanical, artificial heart—hold on, does he even have a physical heart or is it virtual? Huh, she’s not actually sure how Jarvis works. He’s…just always there. She should ask Tony about that when she’s not on the run from a bunch of assholes she thought she’d beaten once already.

\---

True to his word, a little over an hour later, Quinn can hear the telltale sound of the rockets on Tony’s armor close in on the tower. Not even a minute later, she hears him touch down on the balcony outside. Jarvis verbally informs them that Tony’s arrived, more likely for Andy and Lotte’s benefit since he has to know she has enhanced senses, too. Lotte, who’s been on the downward spiral of an adrenaline crash, perks up and sticks her head up over the back of the couch to watch machines peel Tony out of his armor outside. It takes a lot of effort for Quinn to stand up from the extremely comfortable couch which makes her think she has an adrenaline crash of her own in the works.

“Explain,” Tony demands with a boom as he blows past the doors of the balcony. His pace is brisk as he walks toward the couch, but he stops short when he notices Andy and Lotte curled up with each other. “No. First, explain why there are toddlers in my tower. You know the rules, Quinn, no one under twenty-one allowed in my lab,” he says and thankfully sounds a little more like himself than before. She already feels terrible that she’s pulled everyone into her mess and hates that he’s mad.

“Please play nice,” she tells everyone and shoots Lotte a sharp look when she notices Lotte’s mouth open. “Tony, I don’t think you’ve met anyone from my family, so this is my niece—err, technically great-niece—Andrea and her partner, Charlotte. They’d rather you call ‘em Andy and Lotte,” she explains. “Girls, you’d have to live under a rock not to know him, but this is Tony Stark.”

“Just so you know, _I’m_ her favorite adopted family member,” Lotte informs him primly, nose in the air.

“Oh, _please_.” Tony scoffs and he narrows his eyes at her. “It was a nice try, squirt, but I’ve been with her since I was a kid, so I’m pretty sure I’m the favorite here. It’s called seniority, look it up.” He then looks back at Quinn. “Anyway, why are there toddlers in my penthouse?”

It takes a deep breath and a prayer to collect her patience. “I appreciate the competition for my favorite, but it won’t be either of you unless you stow your shit. You’re both about to live with each other for a little while, so chill out.” Tony looks positively scandalized and she heaves a long-suffering sigh. “For reasons I’m about to explain, I need someone with a fancy sophisticated AI and super powered suit to protect them. They’ve been…put out of their apartment.”

“Explain,” Tony repeats and that’s exactly what she does.

\---

Once Quinn’s done with her explanation of how her day went FUBAR, Tony dryly remarks, “Wow, you really _are_ in a bitch of a cluster fuck, aren’t you?”

“No shit, Sherlock,” Lotte whispers under her breath.

Then, Tony suddenly explodes with, “I don’t understand.” He throws his arms up in frustration. Then, he turns his back on everyone and tilts his head up to address Jarvis. “How did we not see this, Jarvis? We were literally balls deep in SHIELD’s dirty laundry. Tell me how the fuck we missed this.”

“Perhaps, sir, if I’d had more time—”

“Stop. Hold up,” Quinn barks and waves her hands to catch Tony’s attention. He whirls back around and doesn’t look happy that she interrupted him, but he’ll have to deal. She’s confused as hell. “Hold on one damn second. What the hell are you talkin’ about? Did you—” she squints at him. “When the actual fuck did you hack into SHIELD? And how come I’ve never heard about it until now?”

“What do you mean when? Do you seriously not remember? Come on, Quinn, I know you’re old, but way to talk about serious Alzheimer’s—oh, wait. You don’t know because you were sort of brainwashed at the time.” Quinn winces when she hears Andy and Lotte each make their own shocked sound. She really doesn’t need her civilian family to know about the dirty details of her superhero activities or whatever. “Still, not sure why you don’t know about it. I can’t believe your boy-toy didn’t tell you about it. I know you knew about the Hydra weapons SHIELD had—how did you think we found out about that? Technically, your boy did it the old fashioned way and snooped around on the helicarrier, but I had Jarvis hack their systems. I’m the one who found out that they wanted to make a nuke out of the Tesseract.” He suddenly pales. “Fuck,” he shouts. “Fuck, I’m such an idiot. I let this slip by and—”

“Sir, breathe,” Jarvis softly reminds Tony. Quinn hadn’t been in the country when shit hit the fan with Tony and the Mandarin, but she heard about the fallout afterward. Rhodey was the one to talk to Quinn and asked for some advice on how to deal with PTSD…in enhanced people. Not only did Tony fess up about his panic attack, but Pepper did, too. Rhodey, still active in the air force, of course knows all about PTSD, but the three of them quickly realized the traumatic shit she dealt with didn’t vanish—and they may’ve stabilized the Extremis virus she was infected with, but they couldn’t make it disappear completely.

“Tony,” Quinn speaks up and chuckles darkly. “Don’t beat yourself up about this. Do you really want to compare negligence of duty here? Because I think I have you beat here. I’ve had decades to catch this and I didn’t. I sat around with my thumbs up my ass and never even realized. What they’ve done all these years, the people that’ve been murdered and the lives that’ve been ruined, it’s all on me—”

“No,” Andy shouts and launches to her feet. She moves to stand between Quinn and Tony and scowls at both of them. “No way in hell are we about to do this. You’re not about to sit here and try to…to…to one up each other on the blame game! You two do this stupid shit later. At this very second, you need to get your head out of your asses and come up with a way to stop them!” She slaps a hand over her mouth. Everyone in the room blinks in shock at her. “Sorry,” she blurts and quickly moves back next to Lotte.

“Yeah, you’re definitely a Hayden,” Tony points out. He takes a deep breath and then looks back at Quinn. “You’re the boss. What’s the plan?”

Quinn bites down on her bottom lip and swallows down her bitterness. This isn’t the time to have a pity party, that’s true. Just like Andy and Tony said, she needs to come up with a plan of attack here, but that’s hard to do when she has no idea what Hydra has planned. From how Isabella talked, they must be close to the finish line of their evil, little scheme or they wouldn’t be so desperate to keep Quinn compliant. What Quinn desperately needs is some more information, but it’s not like she can storm into the Triskelion and demand answers—she’s not completely suicidal.

But…she does know someone that’s scratched the surface of SHIELD’s secrets once before, she muses and shoots Tony a thoughtful look. “I have an idea,” Quinn murmurs as a plan starts to take shape in her head. “Jarvis said that if he’d had more time, he could’ve went deeper—could’ve learned a lot more, is that true?” Tony nods slowly. “Do you think you and him could do it again? Can you find out what Hydra has planned?”

“It would take considerably more time,” Jarvis explains on Tony’s behalf. “I have no doubt that SHIELD—ahem, pardon the mistake. I have no doubt that Hydra has updated their security measures since Mister Stark had me break into their databases the first time. Also, there will likely be considerably more data to sift through this time.”

“If I can distract SHIELD or Hydra or whoever the fuck they are now, can you tell me what their plans are?” Tony stares at her incredulously which makes her defensively ask, “What? What’s with that look?” Maybe it’s not the best idea, but it seemed like a pretty decent one to her. There really aren’t many other options. They’re in the dark.

“Are you seriously about to bench me on this? Me? _Me_? I literally have _rockets_. Okay, yeah, I can kind of understand why you don’t want to storm down the castle, but it’ll eventually come to that. You need someone with firepower. _Distraction_ ,” he scoffs. “I can’t believe you. Out of all the harebrained ideas you could come up with, you think it’s the best idea to be a distraction? You need someone on your team—”

“I’ll have Steve,” she replies petulantly and he rolls his eyes. It only makes her more frustrated. “And even without Steve, I’m a super soldier. I’ve learned and trained more years than you’ve been alive. I know I may look like some kinda delicate flower, but I’m not defenseless.”

“I haven’t been defenseless since a bunch of terrorists blew me up, kidnapped me, and tortured me in a cave, but whenever I’m in deep shit, you still always have a bitch fit when I say you can’t come help me,” he snarls.

“That’s _not_ the same.”

“Yes, it is,” three voices reply simultaneously, though Tony’s voice is louder and more furious. “I can’t deal with you,” Tony moans in frustration. “You’re the most hypocritical person on the face of the planet. You’re the most oblivious person when it comes to how other people feel, too—worse than me even and that’s terrible. You’re in timeout, think about what you’ve done, whatever adults say to babies which is what you have the emotional capabilities of at this very second. I’ll be in my lab. Leave me alone.”

Quinn watches, her temper on the rise but also dumbfounded because what the fuck? Where the hell did that come from? She looks over to Andy and Lotte, maybe they can help her understand, but they refuse to meet her eyes. She covers her face and holds back her scream. Who is he to call her a baby? And really, Anthony? Is it really the time to call people names? Hydra’s on the loose and he wants to have a hissy fit himself? She wants to storm after him and demand to know what put his panties in a twist, but that’d probably only be more ammunition for him to use.

For now, she’ll keep some space between Tony and herself until their tempers have cooled down. Contrary to what Tony thinks, she does know how people work, and she’s had a stressful week so she’s not in a nice state of mind. Plus, when she called Tony, scared and hurt, it didn’t put him in the best mood, either. So, she’ll move her focus elsewhere. “Jarvis,” Quinn calls out through gritted teeth. “Am I allowed to ask for another favor or did Tony ban me from talkin’ to you, too?”

“I’m at your service, Doctor Hayden.”

“Can you hack Steve’s phone and track his location?”

“That I can do quite easily. Give me a moment, please,” he requests and there’s a pause. “It appears that he’s stationary. I’ve placed him in the middle of the Indian Ocean.”

Okay, so Steve’s not in the states. She’s not sure whether to be happy about that or not. “At least he has his phone with him,” she breathes out. He used to leave it at home or in his locker at the Triskelion, but she fussed until he remembered to keep it with him on the actual missions. He leaves it on the planes, but it’s still relatively close by. “Can you please tell me when he’s back in D.C? When he’s on the move again, if it doesn’t look like he’s headed back to D.C, definitely let me know about that, too. Keep track on where he is at all times.” Quinn has no idea about the details of Steve’s mission. There’s no one she can ask, either. The most she can do is pray to God above that when he moves, it’ll be to head back toward D.C.

“Of course. Will that be all, Doctor Hayden?”

“Yeah. Thanks, Jarvis. I appreciate the help. You’re a doll.” She turns to Andy and Lotte. “I’m stuck here until I can make contact with Steve, so I think I’ll take a nap while I wait. I’m pretty sure I won’t have time to sleep once I’m back in D.C. Come wake me up if you need me. Jarvis can point you in my direction.” She walks over to kiss both their foreheads. “Get some sleep, y’all. We’ve had a hell of a day.”

\---

It comes as a shock when Quinn wakes up hours later. She must’ve been more exhausted than she thought because she didn’t think she’d be able to sleep at all with how worried she’s been today—no. She didn't think she'd be able to sleep with how worried she was _yesterday_ , Jesus. A check with Jarvis tells her that it’s early, about four in the morning. The sun started to set when she went back to take a nap in that same empty suite she took a shower in. Now that she thinks about it, she hasn’t really slept much since that bad dream and her brain can recognized she’s in a safe place, so maybe it does make sense she slept that much.

Quinn stumbles out of bed and heads out of the suite toward the elevator. There’s no update on Steve or Jarvis would’ve woken her up sooner. She doesn’t need any more sleep, so she'll test her luck and see if Tony will talk to her now. Jarvis doesn’t speak up when she calls out her destination which seems like a good sign. The elevator stops at the lab they were at yesterday, when they first made it to the tower, and Tony’s in the middle of the room. There’re a bunch of screens in the air around him and he shoves away data to a separate one, pulls some data back toward him on the one he’s focused on, and stops to type away on the keyboard in front of him. He doesn’t look any happier than he did when he stormed out.

“Hydra,” he starts with a snarl, “are a bunch of dicks.” If he can bitch to her about shit then he can handle her presence. She pulls a nearby chair over next to him and sits down in it.

“Thanks for the information, but I’ve known that since ‘forty-three when they kidnapped and experimented on me.” His expression sours. “Guess your newfound hatred for them has to do with the reason why you haven’t been able to hack SHIELD yet?”

“SHIELD—Hydra—who-the-fuck-ever, they’ve learned since the Battle of New York. They’ve beefed up security a lot. They even took some pointers from when I had to deal with Justin Hammer and Ivan Vanko. I knew I should’ve let Stark Industries handle the cleanup, but I was too busy getting laid and ignored everything—story of my fucking life,” he grits out. “This is bullshit. God, I _hate_ Justin Hammer. Have I said that? In prison and he’s still a pain in my ass.” She wouldn’t be too scared about Hammer tech because it’s all total junk, but she knows Vanko hacked Rhodey’s armor once. He actually had Tony on the ropes. She knows how bad it was because she was there to help with that shit-show. So, she’ll assume who Hydra actually took the real inspiration from is the dearly departed Ivan Vanko…who Justin Hammer unleashed upon the world. Yeah, Quinn hates Justin Hammer, too.

“We have time,” she assures him. “Steve’s still on his mission and I won’t head to D.C until he’s back. I cause trouble before he’s home and Hydra could make it so I never see him again.” He doesn’t immediately reply and she sighs. “Look, I don’t know what I did to make you so upset—”

“Of _course_ you don’t,” he mutters sarcastically.

“—but I’m _sorry_ ,” she finishes.

“You’re really about to make me say it, aren’t you? You want me to admit it? Fine, I will. I’ll do it. I don’t want you to be alone down there, so fucking sue me.” He rubs at his forehead like he has a headache…which he may have since he’s been in this lab, eyes on these screens however many hours. “Listen up, since what happened in New York and then with Killian…I’ve learned that I have more to lose than I ever thought I did before. I know how fast you can lose it all, too,” he admits, voice strained. “Hydra isn’t the same as those aliens in New York. You don’t know who to trust and you’ll never see a hit come until it’s too late. I care about you, Quinn, and I’m sorry that I don’t want to lose you.”

Oh. _Oh_. Jesus. Quinn…honestly, truly did not expect that. “Tony…” Now, she has to swallow down the lump in her throat. “You won’t lose me, okay?” She stares at him, overwhelmed by how lucky she is to have him, to have her family. This only makes her more determined to stop Hydra and to keep him safe, though. Steve, she won’t be able to stop him once she tells him the truth and besides, this fight with Hydra is as much his as it is hers. But Tony, she can make sure he stays out of this and doesn’t end up hurt because of her mistakes. “You won’t, I promise.” She shouldn’t promise him that, either, not when she doesn’t know if she can keep it. “I’ll have Steve and we won’t be alone. We have Natasha down in D.C with us, too. You know better than anyone that she’s the best spy in the world. We can handle whatever they throw at us. What we can’t do is hack SHIELD, but you can. You said you wanted to help. This is the best way how.”

Tony rubs at his chest and looks away from her. “Are you sure?” She tilts her head to the side, confused. “Steve, I know he’d die before he ever worked for Hydra. Technically, he’s already died once because of the fuckers. But how do you know you can trust Romanoff? Damn right I’ve been on the other end of her double agent shenanigans. Are you really sure about her? You don’t have the luxury of trusting the wrong people—it could be life and death.”

Quinn can admit that Tony does have a point, but, “You don’t know Natasha the way I do.” And she doesn’t even mean the intimate way she’s been acquainted with Natasha once before, either. Tony wasn’t there when Natasha ran from the Red Room and, honestly, Quinn herself wasn’t there the whole time, but she saw plenty to know what kind of person Natasha was and what kind of person she wanted to be with a second chance, too. Quinn has seen Natasha’s…less than perfect past and she may talk the talk about how she wants to wash away the blood she spilled under the Red Room, but Natasha doesn’t really believe it can be done. In her eyes, she knows there’s no redemption, but she still tries anyway.

“I know I don’t and maybe that’s the kind of perspective you need right now, Quinn,” Tony bites back. “You trust too easy. You let people too close. You take in lost causes. You love people you shouldn’t,” he explains bluntly. “You wear your heart on your sleeve and it’s nice for the people like me, but it’ll be the death of you if you don’t watch your back.”

This kind of raw emotion, she’s never heard it from Tony. She knows that Tony cares about her, of course she does, but…well, maybe she didn’t realize it was this much. “I’ve been this way since I was born.” What he doesn’t know is that it’s almost been the death of her a few times before, so maybe she does trust too easily. “And I’ll be ninety-three next month, so I’m obviously doin’ something right.” His mouth opens and she interrupts, “I wouldn’t have lived to be this old if it was dumb luck.”

“I think you’re too stubborn to die,” Tony grumbles with a roll of his eyes.

“You’re one to talk.”

“Seriously, how does Capsicle deal with you? What exactly made him decide he wanted to marry the most stubborn woman in the universe?”

“Because Steve is about as stubborn as I am,” she informs him.

“Good God,” he says, horrified. It has to be Steve’s face that tricks everyone because, seriously, it’s obvious to people who truly know Steve that he’s as bad as Quinn. “How do you two make any decisions?”

“ _Compromise_ ,” she stresses. “You should learn how to do it. Come to think of it, I’m pretty sure Pepper and Rhodey would thank me if I taught you a lesson on it. So, let me help you out because this here, it’ll be your first lesson. We need to come to some kind of a compromise, Tony. We need to know what Hydra’s up to. We head into this blind and it won’t make a damn difference if you’re with me or not, we’ll all die.”

Quinn can already tell she’s won this particular battle because she can see it on his face. Tony is always maddest when he has to back down and admit that someone has the better idea. Still, rather than verbally confirm her victory, he mutters, “Whatever.”

“Excuse me, Mister Stark, Doctor Hayden,” Jarvis interrupts politely and she tilts her head up. “Ma’am, you wanted me to inform you of when Captain Rogers has finally arrived in back in Washington D.C and it appears that he has. Would you like me to call him on your behalf?”

“Yes. Please. No, wait,” she blurts and looks at Tony, eyes wide. “You don’t think they could trace the call here, do you?” The deadpan expression is pretty much all the answer she needs and she clears her throat. “Just wanted to be sure, sorry.” Then, to Jarvis, “Go ahead, Jarvis. Thanks.”

Quinn doesn’t breathe while she waits on Steve to pick up the phone. When he does answer, he says conversationally, “Jarvis, I didn’t know you made the calls now.”

“It ain’t Jarvis, sweetheart.” Jesus Christ, she could cry she’s so relieved that he’s okay. “Steve, I don’t think you have a clue how much I’ve missed you.” Tony elbows her in the ribs and she remembers that she has an audience and that she also has important shit to do. “Where are you at this exact second?”

There’s a pause on Steve’s end. “No, see, I think what’s more important here is where _you_ are because I know you’re not home. You haven’t answered your phone, either. There have been a hell of a lot of people who’ve asked me about you since I touched back down in D.C. I haven’t been able to leave the Triskelion.”

“Steve—” she hesitates. She thinks about how she can let him know how serious a situation she’s in now and the answer comes to mind almost immediately. “Steve…I think we should see the Alps.” She can hear him suck in a sharp breath. Good, she knows her point’s made it across. She knew that would do the trick. For Quinn and Steve, the Alps have been their hell on earth. Steve lost Bucky the once and Quinn lost him twice in those damned mountains. To anyone else that wanted to listen in on their conversation, it’s a simple vacation idea, but they’d both die before they ever went anywhere near the Alps again. This is what they came up with so that if one of them ever said it, the other would know to drop everything and run.

Steve’s voice is low when he finally asks, “That sounds nice, but where’d you come up with an idea like that?”

“I have smart ideas every now and then, y’know, but I talked it over with my dear nieces and nephew about it.”

“Well, you must have your hands pretty full then if they’re all in the same room.” Oh, he has _no_ idea. She knows that somewhere down the line, the fact that she introduced Tony and Lotte to each other will eventually come back to bite her in the ass. “So, this really was an unexpected trip, huh? You three went to see him?”

“We didn’t travel that far. I was with the ladies and he came to see me.” She hopes that by now he’s picked up on how she’s careful not to mention names or locations. Maybe SHIELD couldn’t trace the call, but if he’s in the Triskelion, she’s sure there’s more than one way they could listen to Steve’s call. “We’re at his new place now—uh, not sure you’d call it new. His…repaired place? Whatever,” she mutters. “Gals need to stay here. There was a problem at their apartment. Remember that one time when were on our way out of France and met Dernier’s lady friend?” He hums an affirmative. “This is a lot like then.”

“Oh,” he whispers. That had been a doozy of a time for the Commandos. They were done with a mission in France, but on their way out, they’d been attacked by the French Resistance—mistakenly or not, Quinn’s still not sure to this day. Their leader, a spitfire by the name of Olivia, had a whistleblower in her company and they needed to find a way to move him safely to Ally-occupied territory. “Good. They’ll be comfortable there.” What he means is that he now knows they’ll be safe. “You’ve been busy since I left.”

“That doesn’t even come close to what I’ve been up to.”

“Well, I’d love to hear all about it. Do you want to meet up somewhere so we can talk? Should I come to you?”

Quinn hesitates before she decides on, “No. I’ll come to you.” All she wants is to hide him away in this tower where she knows he’ll be safe, but she can’t do this alone and like she’s said before, it’s not her place to keep Steve out of this particular battle. The Triskelion is SHIELD headquarters and that’ll be the best place to hit Hydra and put them down for the count. “You know where I am and how much time it’ll take me to make it back to D.C.” She chews her bottom lip and thinks about where to meet him. It should be public, where there’s room to run if they’ve been tailed. “Hey, let’s meet at the mall where you met Sam.” Mall is broad because it could mean a mall where people shop or the National Mall, which is the one she actually means.

“Okay, I’ll meet you there. How’d you even find out about Sam?”

“I’m your wife and that’s all the answer you need. I know _everything_. And why’re you so defensive about it, anyway? It ain’t like he’s your mistress you need to keep a secret from me.” They’re getting away from the point. “You know where to meet me. Go out and be normal until I’m back.”

“Normal,” he repeats with a snort. “We haven’t been normal since 1937.”

She can’t help the laugh. “Jesus, Rogers, you’re such a fuckin’ sap.” That was when their soul marks showed up, not even a whole week after her seventeenth birthday. “I love you,” she calls out. “Please don’t cause no kinda trouble until I make it there to you.”

“Pot, kettle,” he comments dryly. “Besides, I don’t need to cause any more trouble. It sounds like you have more than enough for the both of us when you get here.”

“Sorry,” she apologizes meekly.

“Don’t be. You’re worth every bit of it.” Next to her, Tony groans loudly and she grins. “I love you, too. I’ll see you soon.”

\---

No one is happy that Quinn has to leave alone and the elevator ride back down to the front doors of the tower is a little awkward and tense. Both Andy and Lotte, who she went to wake up and let them know she was headed out, are latched onto her like two adult-sized octopi and Tony seethes with quiet fury—he apparently isn’t over how she’s benched him. Sad or pissed, whatever the reaction is, it breaks her heart the littlest bit, but she understands why they feel the way they do. It isn’t easy to watch someone you love walk away when you’re not sure if they’ll come back alive or not. This isn’t a death march, she wants to tease them and make them feel better, but she’s not completely sure about that. It isn’t dramatic because Hydra has lived and thrived these past seventy years. This is different than it was back in the war. They have more power, more resources, and they can’t be taken lightly—she’s already made that mistake once.

As the elevator doors slide open, she tries to squirm away from the arms around her, but no dice. “Girls, I have to leave now,” she tells Andy and Lotte quietly. Lotte relinquishes her hold on Quinn, which is a shock, but Andy only squeezes harder. “I _have_ to do this.” Quinn kisses the top of Andy’s head. She hopes Andy knows it isn’t easy on Quinn to leave, either. “As much as I’d love to keep my head buried in the sand, I can’t.”

“You’re a liar,” Andy says petulantly. “You would absolutely not love that. You’re happy as hell you’re not in the dark about this anymore.” She squeezes Quinn one more time before she steps back next to Lotte. “You don’t have to be so responsible all the time. Other people could deal with this.”

“Like the people who have _rockets_ ,” Tony sneers.

To try and make him a little less mad at her, she decides to offer, “Will it make you feel better if I say I’ll call if shit really hits the fan?”

“Shit’s already hit the fan, Quinn.” Yeah, okay, point to Tony there. “And no it doesn’t make me feel better because I know you won’t do it. You stress me the fuck out, do you realize that? Is this what you’ve felt like with me all these years? I’ll end up with ulcers by the end of this. I hope you’re happy.”

“Welcome to the daily life of Pepper Potts and James Rhodes,” she chirps and he rolls his eyes. “Hey, let me have your phone. I had to leave mine at their place,” she says with a nod toward Andy and Lotte. Tony’s horrified face makes her sigh. “I’ll need to make Steve ditch his phone when I’m back down there if he hasn’t already done it and I need a way to keep in touch with you, don’t I?”

“Fuck Hydra,” he curses under his breath and reluctantly hands over his cell phone. “I’ll keep you updated on what I find out.” He smirks as she takes a step back out of the elevator. “Oh, and have fun looking at my porn,” he sings as the elevator doors slide shut.

\---

On the drive down to D.C, Quinn thinks about her car insurance, of all things. She’ll definitely have to ditch her car. She can’t be sure, but there’s probably an APB out on her. Hell, Hydra might try to blow up her car before she even makes it to the D.C area. She wonders if secret Nazi organization is covered by her insurance. Damn it, she should’ve stole one of Tony’s cars. Anywhere he spends a lot of time, he has at least one fancy car.

Surprise, surprise, but no one stops her and she makes it to the National Mall without a hitch. She parks her car, leaves the keys inside, and bids it farewell with a little pat on the hood. Steve’s motorcycle, the one she bought him when he first came out of the ice, is on the other side of the parking lot. The National Mall isn’t exactly small and she dreads the walk around it. Unlike Steve, who is probably dressed to go unnoticed, she had to ditch her jacket in New York. There’s no way she can hide her face and she prays to God no one clocks her.

When Quinn does finally find Steve, he’s at the World War Two memorial. How the memorial is set up is that there are fifty pillars to represent each state in America and the people who came from them, together, to fight in the war. Steve, of course, stands in front of the one marked _Kentucky_. Why she didn’t check at this memorial to start with and save some time, she doesn’t know.

Without a word, she sidles up close to his side, reaches down to lace their fingers together, leans her head on his bicep, and breathes out, “Steve,” in relief. Immediately, he turns to wrap her up in his arms, and she presses her face into his shirt. She clutches onto him hard. She won’t cry, she _won’t_. This isn’t the time for tears. “I’m happy you’re okay.”

“I’m happy you’re okay, too,” he replies. “But I’m still blown away by how it hasn’t even been a day since I left and you’ve caused all this chaos.” He pulls her a little closer and she can hear the smile in his voice when he adds, “Quinn Rogers, you’re trouble, you know that?”

“Guess it must come with the Rogers name,” she sasses, voice muffled by his shirt. He chuckles and she takes a second to relish that sound. This very well could be the last time they’ll be happy for a little while, she thinks. “You don’t have your phone, do you?”

“No, I made sure to leave it in my locker at headquarters.” She slumps in relief. “You were so careful not to name names over the phone that I thought it’d be best we leave technology behind for a little bit.” He pauses. “There’s a lot I need to talk to you about too—about my mission, about Natasha, about when I was called up by Secretary Pierce, of all people, and about a talk I had with Nick.”

Quinn takes a step back out of his arms, but takes his hand back in hers. “My story will probably take longer, so you first.” She looks around the area where a few curious people have stopped to stare at Quinn and Steve. “We should walk. You know how hard it is for us to be in public.”

“I did okay at the Smithsonian,” he protests.

“Yeah, well, you have a hat and—wait. You went to the _Smithsonian_?” They start to walk, but she turns her head to eye him warily.

“You and Natasha have tried to drag me there since they put that exhibit up and you said to keep myself busy. I saw the cutest kids. They were dressed up like you were back in the war.” Her cheeks heat up and he smiles crookedly at her. She’ll never understand the world’s obsession with her. There have been other ladies that’ve done more than she has. “I went to see Peggy, too.”

Since now isn’t the time to have another lecture about how she should be a better friend, she redirects the conversation back to, “You said there was trouble on your mission?”

Steve takes the bait or realizes that there are more important matters at hand, so he explains what happened on his mission with the Lemurian Star, how Natasha had her own mission that she didn’t tell Steve about, how Secretary Pierce requested to see Steve the second he was back in American airspace, and then what was told to him after Steve confronted Nick about the mission. Quinn can feel the color drain out of her face when he tells her about what’s hidden underneath the Triskelion. He runs the details of Project Insight by her and she knows. Isabella said to Quinn that Hydra was desperate to keep Quinn submissive because it was the final stretch of their evil masterplan and this has to be it. Three helicarriers, synced up with advanced satellites that can track anyone anywhere, armed to the teeth and able to blow away a thousand hostiles a minute, and who gets labeled hostile is all in the eye of the beholder.

“Hold on,” Quinn interrupts. “I need to—hold on.” Apparently, Jarvis updated the phone while she was on her way back to D.C because there’s a new contact number for Tony. She shoots Tony a text to tell him to look more into Project Insight after he’s found a way past SHIELD’s security defenses. “Okay, I—I think…” She trails off because the terror comes back around to smack her in the face. She really, truly doesn’t want to drop this bomb on Steve, scared that he’ll blame Hydra on her, but she has to fess up. “I think I should tell you about what’s happened to me. We…should sit down.”

Quinn leads Steve over to a bench that overlooks the Reflecting Pool and sits him down. She takes a deep breath and reluctantly talks about what’s happened on her end of the world and what she’s found out. By the end of it, Steve is probably as pale as she is when she found out about Project Insight, and Quinn feels like a monster for it. All they’ve done to protect the world from Hydra and it was for squat. Because of her laziness, she’s let this happen. The sacrifices that both Bucky and Steve have made were in vain.

“Hydra,” his voice is hoarse when he whispers it. Slowly, he turns to stare at her with eyes wide with panic. “Are you sure?”

“I mean, I couldn’t be completely sure unless someone came up and said to my face they’re Hydra. Isabella never technically said it to me, I only assumed and she didn’t correct me. But do I think it’s true? Yeah…yeah, I think it is.” She hesitates before she confesses, “Isabella…knew something about me that was supposed to have died with Hydra. It also would explain why everyone acted so sketchy when I tried to track down that file. Rollins, he was in records when I came back to look for Isabella, and you know as well as I do that there’s no reason he’d need to be in there. What other reason would there be for why everyone’s so desperate to track me, Lotte, and Andy down? We were the last people to have contact with Isabella. She said she was low on the pole, but a deserter is still a deserter and can spill state secrets.”

He pinches the bridge of his nose and sighs. “And it explains why Secretary Pierce wanted to talk with me as soon as I landed. He asked me if you’d try to make any contact with me while I was on my mission, spun me a story about what happened in New York, said he wanted to help you and Lotte but couldn’t do that if you refused to cooperate. But Nick seemed pretty surprised when I told him about why Pierce wanted to meet with me.”

“C’mon, we should walk some more. We’ve been in this one place too long.” She stands back up and Steve takes her hand when she holds it out. He doesn’t let go and she squeezes his hand harder. After a minute where she mulls over what he said, she murmurs, “I’d like to think that Nick’s on our side. He was on our team in New York. I mean, he blew up a place to keep that nuke away from the city.”

“It can always be an act,” he points out quietly and that’s true, she can admit. “You weren’t around for this, but Tony once said that Nick’s secrets have secrets and we both know better than anyone how much he’s hidden from us. He’s lied to us about a lot, Quinn.”

“Just because he lies doesn’t mean he’s not on our side. Peggy had her own secrets,” she reminds him. “People like me and you, we’re more black and white about the world. Sometimes, secrets are a requirement. You weren’t around when people like McCarthy were. I’ve had to lie a lot myself. Back then, if you told the truth about who you are, it could’ve ruined you—or worse, it could’ve killed you.” She still hasn’t ever told Steve about how people came after her because they wanted to tarnish his and Bucky’s reputations. “I understand better now, that the world’s more blurry.”

Steve stops so unexpectedly that she almost stumbles over her feet. “Of course I know it’s complicated. I’ve always known the world’s not black and white. The two soul marks on my back are proof that the world’s not one way or the other.” He pauses. “My point was that we need to be careful about who we trust.”

“I know we do. Why do you think I haven’t run back to tell Nick about this?” Her eyes narrow at him. “Y’know, for two people that think they don’t have much in common, you and Tony sure do lecture me about the same shit. He told me not to trust anyone—well, he actually said I trust too easily.”

“Well, he’s not exactly wrong.”

“Like you’re one to talk, Rogers.”

“Yeah, we have _you_ in common and we both want to watch your back.” He thinks that, but Steve and Tony actually do have a lot in common. “And in my defense, I wasn’t around to see the world change the ways it did, but you have. So, for someone that’s seen the worst in the world, you do trust a little too easily.” Suddenly, he reaches up to take her face in his hands and pulls her closer to press a kiss to the scar on the side of her head. “I know it’s not practical these days, but it’s one of the reasons I love you so much.”

“Tony didn’t think about it as positive as you.” She can’t help but smile a little. “Here we are, world in peril, and you’re as sweet as ever. I did tell you how much of a sap you are, didn’t I?”

Steve sends her a lopsided smile. The world’s in peril, but she’s happy to have him with her on this. They’ve been able to tackle any problem the world’s thrown at them. They’ve even conquered death, but that one took some ice and decades to do. “Bad time, I know, but I can’t help it.” He rubs the back of his neck. “So, what exactly is the plan here?”

Priorities, she reminds her own sappy self. If she sat here to moon over Steve, the world would be blown to hell and back. “Tony and Jarvis haven’t hacked SHIELD’s databases yet, so…wait?” He groans miserably and she pats him sympathetically on the shoulder. She hates to wait, too. “We should head back to our apartment. I need some new clothes. I’ve been bled on and Jarvis had them cleaned, but…I’d feel better if I could change.”

“ _Really_? You think that’s a smart idea?”

“You know what they say about hiding in plain sight.” Quinn’s eyes move to the horizon where the sun’s started to set. “Isabella said she hacked the surveillance equipment and put it on a loop so they wouldn’t notice I wasn’t home and I hope they haven’t yet. Even if they have, I’ve been on the run, so I don’t think they would’ve had time to fix it.” Maybe it’s a bad idea, but what else do they have to do while they wait? “We’ll be in and out. Besides, I’ll be as quiet as a mouse, so they won’t even hear me.”

“Quinn, I know you, and quiet as a mouse is _not_ what I’d use to describe you.”

“Yeah, well, at least I’ve never tripped over my own two feet and busted through the window of a bridal shop.”

“Cut me some slack, Hayden. I already told you that I’d literally just gotten the serum, so I put on over a hundred pounds and grew over a foot. I’m sorry that I wasn’t exactly used to the body I was running in.”

Quinn teases him with, “Keep using that excuse, Rogers.” Then, she slides her arm around his waist. The two of them head toward the lot where he parked his motorcycle at. “Hey, you know I love you, don’t you? I said it before, but I want you to remember that," _since shit's about to hit the fan_ , she wants to say but doesn't.

“I know,” he answers and his arm moves around her waist, too. “You know you're my heart and soul, too.”

To anyone else, they look like a couple of lovebirds…which they are. Quinn only hates that it feels so much like there’s an axe over their heads that’s about to drop at any second.


	7. It’s Been a Long, Long Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> At long last, an old enemy makes an appearance.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this isn't the bridge scene you guys wanted, but there's some good, juicy stuff in here! You guys are probably going to be punching your computers at the end because she's SO CLOSE to finding out the truth. "It's right there in front of, Quinn!" you'll be screaming. And then you'll want to punch throat me because I keep putting Quinn and Bucky so close yet so far away. c:<  
> Also, sorry if there's errors at this exact moment. I was eager to post this because it's been a long time since the last update but it's late and I'm too tired to go back through for editing.  
> Oh, and huge shout out to [Sarah](http://www.thequernly.tumblr.com) and [Jay](http://www.jayetic.tumblr.com) because they are both my partners in crime and I'd probably be dead by now without them.  
> Happy angsty reading! I love you guys!

It seems real ironic that there’s a potential worldwide catastrophe in the works and here Quinn and Steve are with too much time to kill on their hands. Quinn has Steve make a stop at this little place close to their apartment to eat dinner. She reckons that the two of them will need the extra calories to burn sooner rather than later. For them, it’s always best practice to eat when they have the chance. Plus, the more time they take to eat, the later it’ll be, the darker it’ll be outside, and the easier it’ll be to sneak inside their apartment and not alert SHIELD about it. Then, because she’s at her most paranoid ever now, she has Steve leave her behind at the restaurant and ride on ahead while she walks the short distance to the apartment. There’s no doubt in her mind that someone has access to the traffic cameras on the street around their place and if Steve has someone on the back of his bike when he rolls up, SHIELD would be on them in no time.

Steve leaves here there with his ball cap on her head now, his leather coat around her shoulders, and his kiss still warm on her lips. Quinn takes her sweet time to walk to their apartment complex. Once she’s there, rather than lurk around outside their actual place, she waits outside a shop directly across the street. She needs to stick to the shadows until Steve’s scoped out the place proper. Then, when he decides the coast is clear, he’s supposed to open up a window which she can see clear as day from her position on the street.

Now, what Quinn  _doesn’t_ expect to see is Steve walk back out the main doors. Well, not  _yet_ , anyway. He needs to act as normal as possible, so she told him if it looked like SHIELD has too close an eye on the place then he was supposed to wait around for a little while before he heads back out the door. Smartly, Steve doesn’t associate with her when he walks back out on the street. He doesn’t even look her way—he knows she’s there, anyway. He starts to make his way down the street in the direction she came from, actually.

It would look too suspicious to stalk after him, so she hovers a minute more before she heads in the opposite direction to make a loop around the block. Quinn, when she’s on the back side of their apartment building, watches Steve creep into the cover some trees planted on the sidewalk provide him. He waits so she assumes it’s for her to come talk to him and she rolls her eyes. It looks like he doesn’t want to be smart about this anymore. She swears that sometimes he’s more impatient than she is and that’s pretty damn impatient. Whatever the matter is, it has to be really important since he wants to break cover.

“I talked with Kate,” Steve explains when she walks over to stand next to him.

“Ah, the ever mysterious Nurse Kate.” Quinn has  _a lot_ of personal experience in hospitals, so she knows too damn well how chaotic the hours for nurses can be. Still, not once since she and Steve moved to D.C has she ever been able to see Kate the resident nurse. Steve and Quinn’s hours with SHIELD aren’t exactly the standard nine-to-five so a person would think she would’ve seen Kate by now, but no. “Y’know, I’ve started to think maybe this is on purpose. Should I be more worried? You don’t think she’s tryin’ to step in on my husband, do you?”

“Kate doesn’t seem like that kind of person,” he replies slowly. “But, hey, if that really is her evil plan then I can’t say I blame her. I’m quality husband material. My wife’s told me as much.”

“Honey, I could hide behind your head, it’s so big right now. Oh, by the way, your wife is tellin’ you now that she’s about to stab you if you don’t hurry up and give a better reason for breaking our cover other than to gossip about the neighbors. We’re not a couple of old ladies sittin’ around on the porch, Steven.”

“Gossip saved our asses because Kate told me I left our stereo on,” he informs her primly. She stares at him expectantly and waits for him to tell her why this is such a revelation. “I know  _I_ haven’t touched it since that day I danced with you and I know you wouldn’t have left it on when you went to New York, so someone’s in the apartment who isn’t supposed to be.” Great. That’s perfect. “We should check it out together. There’s only three exit points—front door, window beside the kitchen, and the window in our room. You can cover the bedroom while I check out the rest of the apartment. Good?”

She doesn’t like that she’ll have to keep in the bedroom, but she understands his reason behind it, so answers with a grumpy, “Fine.” With the bedroom door open, she can see that window next to the kitchen, so she’ll be able to cover those two non-visible exit points that Steve can’t. Not only that, but on the chance that this is a friendly visit, no one needs to know she’s back in D.C. Natasha and Clint have this bad habit where they’ll drop in randomly in Quinn and Steve’s apartment. Okay, actually everyone that they know has that habit, but none of them have a loyalty to SHIELD like Natasha and Clint do. A loyalty like that could cause a problem. She has no doubt that someone’s told them about the trouble Quinn’s in and she’d like to think they’d stick behind Quinn and wouldn’t rat her out, but it’s an unknown they can’t afford to have at the moment.

As Quinn and Steve climb up to their apartment, she thinks about how what irritates her the most about this whole situation is that she now has to sneak inside her home. A pair of thieves, that’s what they have to be now because Hydra are a bunch of assholes who couldn’t take the hint and _die_. The bedroom window seems the best entry point and inside, Quinn catches Steve’s arm before he can move. Her senses are more enhanced than his. She cocks her head to the side, tries to push past the all the noise the music and the city make, but to her frustration, it’s too much to tune out. Whoever’s in here must know how to overload her senses. She looks at him, shakes her head, and relinquishes her hold on him. He leaves the bedroom door open and she watches him sneak out.

_It’s Been a Long, Long Time_ echoes in their otherwise silent apartment. God, she remembers when that tune hit number one on the charts. It’d been the end of ‘forty-five, not even a whole year since she lost Steve and Bucky. She’d _hated_ it and, admittedly, still doesn’t like it that much now. Steve, however—who has tried to catch up with the music scene between the time he went in and came out of the ice—loves it. The first time he danced with her to it, she can admit that she had to stop because she’d started to cry. It was hard not to when she heard _you’ll never know how many dreams I dreamed about you, or just how empty they all seemed without you, so kiss me once then kiss me twice then kiss me once again, it’s been a long, long time_.

“I don’t remember giving you a key,” Steve speaks up over the sound of the music and catches her attention.

Quinn’s on the move the second she hears _Nick_ respond with, “You really think I’d need one?” It doesn’t take her even thirty seconds to dart out of the bedroom, walk down the hall, and round the corner where Steve faces Nick down. Nick, of course, doesn’t seem all too surprised when she appears. He’s relaxed in their chair— _too_ relaxed, in fact. It takes a lot to make him be less than business. Since the apartment is dark other than the warm glow that comes from the city, she can’t see him too clearly, but…there’s something wrong with him. She squints at him, takes a deep breath, and the sharp metallic scent of blood hits her. “My wife kicked me out,” Nick goes on like she isn’t even there.

“Didn’t know you were married,” Steve replies nonchalantly and she looks over her shoulder at him, perplexed by his reaction. He clearly isn’t focusing on his senses the way he should be because if he was then he’d be able to tell Nick’s hurt. He wouldn’t be so casual then.

“A lot of things you don’t know about me,” Nick murmurs.

“I know, Nick,” Steve sighs. “That’s the problem.”

Steve turns on the nearest lamp and bathes the room in more light, so he and Quinn are able to see exactly the kind of shape that Nick’s in. There are multiple lacerations, her doctor brain immediately notices. Steve snaps to attention, but Nick shakes his head as he stands up to turn the lamp back off. Nick clutches at his side while he moves, so he has some internal injuries, too. Bruised or broken ribs, most likely. This was a car wreck, she bets. When he sits back down, he types away on his phone and when he shows it to them, it declares:  _EARS EVERYWHERE_.

“I’m sorry to have to do this to you, but I had no place else to crash.” The next time Nick shows them his phone,  _SHIELD COMPROMISED_ is what they read. A rush of relief washes over her because this means that Nick’s on their side. She can’t be sure how much he knows, can’t be sure if he knows that it’s Hydra inside SHIELD, but he wouldn’t be here if he wasn’t with them on this. Whatever relief she feels instantly vanishes because…is he hurt because someone found out about what he knows? Did Hydra put a hit out on him?

“Who else knows about your wife?” Steve questions lowly. Good question.

_JUST US THREE_ , Nick answers on his phone and slowly rises back up on his feet. He starts to limp toward them and she twitches with the urge to make him sit back down and make him rest. She really should check on him and see exactly how bad he’s been hurt. Out loud, he replies, “Just…my friends.”

Steve must still be a little upset about the discussion he and Nick had earlier because, a little bitchily, he asks, “Is that what we are?”

“That’s up to you.”

And then, there’s a noise like thunder. Quinn doesn’t have time to react when plaster explodes from the wall behind Nick. There are three quick shots that she realizes are bullets too late. Nick shouts in pain and his knees buckle, but she catches him and tucks him close to her chest. Steve snatches his shield, always close, and hovers protectively over Quinn while she tries to pull Nick away from the window and into the hall, out of the shooter’s line of vision. She’s not so sure anywhere else in the apartment is safe, honestly, since the fucker was able to pinpoint Nick’s exact location so accurately and was able to _shoot Nick through the wall._ That’s no ordinary weapon—to be able to blow past concrete and plaster and…shit. _Shit_. This is bad.

Out of the corner of her eye, as she looks out the window, there’s a flash of silver. Metal. The shooter. He isn’t far. Just on the rooftop of a place directly across from theirs. Fuck, Quinn needs a weapon. That’s another reason she wanted to come back home because she needs to be armed. The kitchen’s behind her. Knives are easier to conceal. Also, medical supplies—she has those stashed all around the place.

Gently as she can, Quinn stretches Nick out on the floor. She tries to move to drop back in the kitchen, but before she can, Nick lashes out to catch her wrist. She looks down and in her hand, he passes on a silver flash drive to her. “Don’t…trust _anyone_ ,” he chokes out. Then, his hand drops away from hers, his entire body slumps, and he passes out. _Fuck_. Bad. Bad, bad, _bad_.

Shit has one hundred percent hit the fan here and because it has, there’s another crash. Her breath catches in her throat. She thinks it’s the shooter, but then she realizes this comes from where someone busts in their front door. This must be the reinforcements come to take them in or put them down, she can’t help but think. Steve, Quinn, and Nick have been made and someone’s here to storm down the castle. The apartment is too damn small a space to deal with this shit. They have to know how much manpower it would take to put Steve and Quinn down and there’s no room to handle that.

“Captain Rogers,” a woman calls out over the music. Quinn needs to be armed _now_. She dives back into the kitchen to snatch a knife from the block on the counter. No shots have been fired yet and then Quinn hears the other woman explain, “Captain, I’m Agent 13 of SHIELD Special Service.” Quinn takes a second to rip open the cabinet underneath the sink and pull out the first-aid kit hidden there. Not everyone inside SHIELD is Hydra and this could be help is what she immediately tells herself. Then, the paranoia kicks back in and makes her wonder about how this woman happened to be in the exact place at the exact time they needed help.

“ _Kate_?” Steve blurts.

Ah. Well, that would explain how she ended up here as quick as she did. This woman has been placed undercover in their apartment building. There’s no possible way Quinn can learn every name and face inside SHIELD, but she moves to catch a peek and see if this person is familiar. She then proceeds to almost trip over her own two feet in shock. She blinks and squints to make sure this isn’t a trick of the dark, but no, it's real. Yeah, this is…definitely a very familiar face. That’s _exactly_ who Quinn thinks it is. She can’t help but squeak, “ _Sharon_?”

Sharon must not expect Quinn’s appearance because she drops the weapon she had raised. “ _Quinn_?”

Jesus Christ, it all makes sense now. No damn wonder Quinn hasn’t been able to see Kate the Nurse. Her cover would’ve been blown the second Quinn saw her because she knows who the fuck _Peggy’s niece_ is. She knew that Sharon had started up with SHIELD, but she wanted to respect Sharon’s request that no one know who she’s related to. She didn’t want to be stuck in her aunt’s shadow at SHIELD. If she moved up in the ranks, she wanted it to be because of her hard work and skills, not because of her connections.

Baffled and a little pissed, Quinn explodes with, “ _Why are you here_?”

Sharon snaps back into SHIELD operative-mode. “I was assigned to protect Captain Rogers.” That, of course, is an insult to Quinn because who the fuck had the idea that she couldn’t protect her own husband? Sharon doesn’t understand why Quinn’s really offended because, quieter, she adds, “A separate special agent was assigned to protect you.”

“On whose order?” Steve questions hotly. Yeah, he’s not happy that Sharon posed as a friend. He doesn’t ever appreciate it when someone manipulates him like that.

Sharon then takes a step to the side and it puts Nick, who is still unconscious and stretched out on the floor, in her direct line of vision. Taken aback, she hesitates before she breathes out, “ _His_.” She drops down on her knees next to him. She may not be a nurse, but she does have some medical training because she immediately checks for his pulse. Then, when she knows that he’s still alive, she reaches for a walkie-talkie that’s hidden underneath her waistband. “Foxtrot is down. He’s unresponsive. I need EMT’s.”

Whoever’s on the other end questions, “Do you have a twenty on the shooter?”

Quinn’s attention snaps back to the window and Steve’s eyes immediately follow her own. The smartest decision would’ve been to scram the second those shots made contact, but their shooter must’ve stuck around to make sure when Nick went down, he stayed down. Or…there was a hit on Steve, on Quinn, or on both of them. Whatever the reason that kept him around, he decides it isn’t enough to keep him in position anymore. He immediately darts away from the edge of the rooftop and Steve leaps into action.

“Tell 'em I’m in pursuit,” is how Steve warns them before he runs directly at the window.

“Goddamn it, Steve, I’m _faster_ ,” she screams after him. Either he doesn’t mind her attention or can’t hear her when he busts past the window. She can’t see it, but she can hear when Steve crashes past the wall on the opposite building. Bull in a china shop, she swears to God.

“Go help him,” Sharon speaks up and Quinn looks down at her then to Nick. As a doctor, she should stay here with Nick, but as a soldier…she should help Steve with the shooter. “Two super soldiers are better than one. I have a first-aid kit and EMT’s should be here soon—I can take it from here.” Sharon then catches Quinn’s eyes. “Leave, Quinn, before SHIELD shows up.” Oh, so Sharon knows about the trouble Quinn’s in and her hands would otherwise be tied. This is the excuse Sharon’s come up with to let Quinn to bail and her heart aches to leave someone hurt behind, especially a friend, but there’s a lot at stake and she can’t help the world stuck in SHIELD’s custody.

What Quinn's come to learn that where Steve is power, she is speed. Past their busted window, she can see that her husband decided to work his way through the other building rather than climb up the outside and chase after the shooter over the rooftops. She can literally hear Steve bust around inside that other building. She has a late start, but that’s no problem for her—she’s most likely the fastest person on the face of the planet. So, she takes a few steps back then sprints toward the window and leaps out of it. As expected, she lands on the fire escape to the building across from their apartment and runs up the steps to the rooftop.

Quinn puts on the speed when she’s on flat surface and sprints across the rooftop. The shooter is in the distance, not too far that she can’t catch up, but…the amount of distance he’s made in such a short time concerns her. Still, he must not know too much about this block’s layout because he’s put himself at a dead end, she sees. Quinn only has to leap across a few more rooftops before she’s at the building directly connected to the one their shooter is now stuck on. Steve catches up, too. He violently busts through a window, tucks and rolls, and when he’s on his feet, he throws his shield at the man.

The shooter turns and catches the shield with one arm. One metal arm. And since this week has been one surprise after another, she’s left to reel in shock. Not because of how easily the shield is caught, but because that’s _him_. That’s…the Winter Soldier. It isn’t possible. It _shouldn’t_ be possible, but she would know that red star and that metal arm anywhere. The picture he makes has been burned in her memories. _Enhanced_ , is the whisper in her brain that sounds suspiciously like Isabella. Another puzzle solved. Hydra’s super soldier, Isabella called the Winter Soldier, and that must be how he’s still here. This same person that has the same curse as Quinn.

When the Winter Soldier throws the shield back at Steve, he doesn’t expect the impact to be so hard. The power of that throw makes Steve physically slide back. The Winter Soldier wants to use this as a distraction to escape, but he miscalculated. He didn’t plan that Quinn would show up. As soon as his back is turned, she takes her chance and leaps down on the rooftop then sprints toward the Winter Soldier. The knife from the kitchen is still in her hand and she throws it at him in hopes it’ll hit him, but he must hear the whiz in the air. He ducks down on his knees to avoid it and pivots his body around to face her. But now she has a higher position and tries to knee him in the face. Instead, he grabs her ankle with his metal arm and uses her own momentum against her to spin back around and launch her off the roof.

Enhanced she may be, Quinn’s still a person, and maybe there aren’t too many stories to drop and maybe she lands on a car rather than concrete, but it still hurts like absolute hell and knocks the wind out of her. Pain flares up in her back and slithers to the rest of her body that made contact with hard steel. She tries to move, but it’s hard since the car is now molded to the shape of her body, and that’s time the Winter Soldier uses to make his way down to her. On a car directly in front of the one she’s now stuck in, the Winter Soldier lands on his feet. It crushes the car, but he’s not stuck in it like she is. There’s no better time than now for him to kill her and she’s breathless with that realization, but he doesn’t make a move. Instead, he stares at her. It’s when the shield whizzes in the air that the Winter Soldier is pulled from his trance. He leaps out of the way and the shield buries itself in the spot he’d previously been. The Winter Soldier moves into the shadows and makes his escape.

Quinn starts to squirm her way out of the warped metal of the car. Someone won’t be happy when they wake up. She’ll have to leave a SHIELD card somehow. While Hydra is still hidden inside SHIELD, they can pay someone’s insurance claim. Steve, when he makes it down to the street, comes over to help her back out. “Are you okay?” he murmurs and holds her shoulders to keep her steady when she starts to wobble. “He didn’t hurt you, did he?”

“You mean other than when he threw me off the roof?” she shoots back dryly. She stands up straight and not only does her back pop, but more pain shoots across her back. She moans in pain and Steve winces in sympathy. “No, he didn’t do more than that. He had the chance, but…” She trails off, confused. Then, she shakes her head. She can’t focus on that now. “I know which way he went. We can try to hunt him down.”

“You’re hurt,” he points out. She’s been hurt worse and went on with the mission. It isn’t so bad that she can’t run. Besides, while the two of them sit here and talk, her body has already started to heal. She opens her mouth to tell him that. “ _And_ ,” he interrupts. “SHIELD is at the apartment now. It’ll only be a matter of time before they sweep the area and find us. We need to plan our next move.”

Damn it. He has a point there. Rather than push the idea of pursuit more, she instead points out, “Well, we both know that if I step one foot inside the Triskelion then they ain’t likely to let me leave. Sharon…I know her and she’s dedicated to SHIELD. If there wasn’t the excuse that two super soldiers are better than one then she probably wouldn’t have hesitated to take me in. No matter what our personal connection is with each other, she won’t lie to the top brass. She’ll tell them you were here and, more importantly, that _I_ was here.”

Steve takes a minute to think and then decides, “We shouldn’t leave Nick alone at the hospital.” Nick…wasn’t in the best of shape when Quinn left him in Sharon’s care. He’s an older man who took three bullets to the upper torso and that doesn’t count what happened to him _before_ he came to their apartment. Nick’s too stubborn to die, she hopes, but the doctor in her is more skeptical. “I know it looks bad,” Steve speaks up like he can read her mind, “ _but_ if he does make it out alive then we need to be there to protect him. You know they’ll come for him.”

Another point to Steve. Still, she has to remind him, “Sharon’s called it in. No matter how it turns out, whether Nick’s alive or dead, they’ll still be all over the place.” Then, she realizes, “Fuck me. We can’t be seen with each other.”

“You’re not some escaped convict. You haven’t committed a crime. There’s no reason I should be in trouble because I was with my wife.”

“No, of course I haven’t, but SHIELD wants to _question_ me.” She uses air quotes on the word _question_. “And Lord knows if they have their way—if they catch me then I probably won’t ever see the light of day again until Hydra’s taken over.” Then, she has an even worse epiphany. “They’ll want to question you, too. _Shit_.”

“So, we’re back to square one,” he says with a wry smile. “What do we do?”

“It’ll only make our case worse if we _both_ try to run,” she reasons out loud. She’s started to come up with a plan of attack, but Jesus, she already hates this idea. Still, it’s the only one they have. “But it’s true that someone needs to be at the hospital to have Nick’s back. And, yeah, SHIELD, Hydra, whoever—they’ll be there and they’ll take in whoever they can find whether it’s me or you or both of us. They take _you_ in, all you can be is questioned, but there’s no reason to keep you. With me, they have a _little_ bit of the law on their side if they wanted to hold me. Technically speakin’, I wouldn’t cooperate with their investigation.”

Steve’s started to catch on, but doesn’t look too happy about it. “You want me to cooperate.”

“I want you to lie your ass off,” she corrects. “Which, to the people that don’t know you, will seem like cooperation. Tell them we met at the apartment. Like the model citizen that you so obviously are, you were about to march me down to headquarters so we could clear this whole nasty business up, but then we went inside and found Nick. Shit went sideways real quick, you lost track of me when we were in pursuit of the shooter, and that’s the last you ever saw me. Good?”

“ _Model citizen_ ,” he repeats with a snort.

“I’ve tried to tell them what’s what, but no one ever listened to me. You’ve never been a model citizen. I still don’t think anyone knows those mission reports in the war didn’t even mention half the stupid stunts we actually pulled.” She takes a deep breath. Okay, back to business. “I’ll keep as close to you as I can. It shouldn’t be too hard at the hospital, but I don’t think I can sneak inside headquarters.” Because they will take him to the Triskelion, she has no doubt about that. “I can hover outside. Make sure you stop and pick up your phone and text me if there’s any trouble. They kick up a fuss about the phone then lie and tell them you need it to see if I’ve tried to make contact.”

“For someone that’s told me she’s not a spy, you sure know how to act like one,” he casually remarks.

“SHIELD sends you on missions when the Cold War’s on then you need to pick up a couple of spy-like habits to stay alive. Still don’t make me a spy,” she defends and then has a mild panic attack. She quickly pats herself down because she’d slipped that flash drive into her pocket, but she doesn’t remember which. God, she hopes it wasn’t the back pocket because it definitely wouldn’t have survived that drop on the car. “Oh, thank the Lord,” she whispers with relief when she finds it shoved down in one of her front pockets.

Steve’s eyes zero in on the silver flash drive. He plucks it from her hand, studies it, and then announces, “I’ve seen this. At least, I think this is the same one. It was on our mission. This is what Natasha backed up stolen SHIELD data on.” What kind of data? That’s what she wants to know. Steve can see that question because he answers, “I didn’t ask questions. I was more pissed that she had her own mission and Nick didn’t tell me about it.”

Absentmindedly, she rubs her thumb over the flash drive. “Whatever’s on this…it must be how Nick learned that SHIELD’s been compromised. There must be some serious shit on this since it’s most likely the reason Hydra put out a hit on him.” Suddenly, the importance of this little device becomes more and more obvious. “They tried to assassinate the director of SHIELD. All this time, they’ve never made a move like that. Not until Nick had his hands on this flash drive. So, they’re either ballsy—”

“—or desperate,” Steve finishes for her. It’s started to dawn on him, too, exactly what they have in their hands. “It isn’t stolen SHIELD data. It’s stolen Hydra data. We need to keep it safe and we need to know what’s on it.” He scrubs a hand across his face. “Now the real question is how we’re supposed to do that when our tech whiz is all the way in New York.”

Over the quiet of the city, there’s sudden noise that makes Quinn twitch and hold up a hand to silence Steve. She moves her head to the side, toward where the noise comes from, and listens close. The heavy footsteps of boots echo in an alleyway and the clipped chatter between operatives on the scene and those over radios. “SHIELD’s started to sweep the area and they’re only a few blocks over,” she explains.

Steve takes a deep breath, exhales. “Okay. I’ll meet up with them. That’ll be some extra time for you to disappear.” He catches her hand and squeezes hard. It isn’t easy for him to leave her alone, either. “I love you. Please be safe.”

“You’re the one that’s headed to the lion’s den,” she replies bitterly. She hates that it’s come to this. They only met back up and now they have to separate. “And I love you, too.” At this point, it’s almost a requirement to remind him how much she loves him. She smiles nervously and squeezes his hand one last time before she turns the opposite direction and leaves him alone there on the street.

\---

The best method to use to shadow Steve’s movements is to keep up on the rooftops, Quinn decides. It’ll be a bitch and she’ll have to break out her parkour skills, but it’ll make life easier, in the end. As stupid as she wants to make Hydra out to be, they’re not because they’ve sent the STRIKE team in to pick Steve up. Natasha isn’t with them, she’s quick to notice. Now there are trained professionals that surround her husband, so she needs to be as discreet as possible. She doesn’t have a car to tail the SUV she saw Rumlow and Steve duck into and Steve’s motorcycle is too loud to be inconspicuous. She has the speed and stamina to keep up with the SUV on foot, but someone books it on the street the way she’d have to and it’ll be noticeable to anyone, but especially to trained eyes.

Technically, she doesn’t even need to watch the SUV to know which hospital Nick will be sent to. Steve and Quinn’s apartment isn’t that far from the Triskelion, obviously, so there’s already not many options because of that. But there’s also a particular hospital close to headquarters that SHIELD tends to favor. Still, she sprints and leaps across rooftops—which becomes harder and harder the further they move into downtown—and tries her hardest to keep a close eye on the vehicle because she can’t trust the hospital is where Steve will end up.

Hydra has to know that Quinn knows about them—it’d be dumb for them to let her have the benefit of the doubt that way. Tactically, the smartest move Hydra could make would be to kidnap Steve. Without a doubt, it would take both super soldiers out of the equation because Isabella said that Quinn’s most obvious weakness is that she has people she loves and that’s true. If the leaders of Hydra haven’t learned that by now then they haven’t paid attention. If they threatened to kill Steve, she would fold with absolutely no hesitation. Yeah, she knows Steve would hate to hear that, but it doesn’t make it any less true.

The even nastier truth is that she would let the whole world burn to keep her soulmate alive. She would drop down on her knees and let someone put a bullet in her brain to protect him. Live or die, whatever Hydra would need her to do, she’d do it. For a person like her, this is the cost it takes to keep her soulmate, and she’s accepted that. Steve, however, she’s not so sure whether he’s realized it or not. Gut instinct tells her that sooner or later, some hard decisions will need to be made and there’ll be some sacrifices.

Color her surprised when the SUV screeches to a stop in front of the hospital. She crouches down to take a breather and let her heartbeat slow down a little. Steve and the STRIKE team rush past the doors and her eyes sweep over the whole rest of the front of the hospital. Normally, at this time of night, it wouldn’t be too hard to sneak inside a hospital, but the problem is that security’s been beefed up. The hospital buzzes with activity as both the local police and SHIELD swarm the place. Those that’re actually SHIELD probably want to make sure the shooter won’t show up to finish what he started. Shit, she didn’t tell Steve about the Winter Solider. She’ll need to do that the next time she has the chance to talk to him.

There’s another screech of a car and Quinn’s eyes drop back down to the street. That black corvette Natasha’s so fond of stops between some cop cars and she watches Nat race toward the front doors. It isn’t a surprise that Nat came as fast as she did. She’s close with Nick. He’s pretty much the closest thing to a father Nat’s ever had. Quinn wonders if Maria Hill’s been told about this. Wait, of course she’s been told. She hopes Maria can make it in time. Maria and Nat…they’re Nick’s family and they’d want to be here to watch him pass, if it comes down to that.

Quinn needs to be in there, too. The best way to sneak inside, she reckons, is the basement since that’s where the morgue should be. Usually, there isn’t a whole lot of traffic in the basement. As she moves across rooftops to search for a point of entry, she hits gold when she spots an open loading bay at the back of the hospital for delivery trucks. There must’ve been some late night deliveries scheduled, but with all the police in the way now, that’s not likely to happen. Lucky her that it seems like the SHIELD security detail doesn’t have all their ducks in a row yet because that bay door wouldn’t be open otherwise. That’ll be where she can sneak in.

She reaches in her back pocket to take out Steve’s rolled up ball cap and shoves it down on her head. The least she can do is make it a little bit harder for security cameras to catch her face. From the rooftop she’s currently on, she drops down into an alleyway. She tries to appear as calm and casual as she can while she strolls across the street toward the hospital. There’s no one else inside the loading bay when she makes it there and the only way inside the hospital is a door with a bell. The people who unload the trucks need to be let in by hospital staff. It wouldn’t take much for her to break in, but she can’t risk any alarms. So, she’ll have to use her charm. Like _that_ won’t end in disaster.

Okay, she needs a cover story and she’s quick to come up with one while she reaches out to ring the bell. She hopes all the hospital staff isn’t up front where all the action is. There’s a lot of police presence, yes, but the whole hospital can’t stop because of that. Thankfully, she doesn’t wait too long. A maintenance man is the one who opens the door—or so she assumes because of the uniform and all. “Ma’am, you can’t come in this way. You’ll need to sign in at the registration desk.”

“Oh. No. No, sir,” she blurts and makes her eyes go wide. She needs him to deal her the sympathy card. “I’m not a patient. I’m actually here for a delivery?” And she make sure to drop any noticeable accent from her voice. “My truck’s out front, but…the street’s blocked? I wanted to see what’s up?”

The man’s eyes sweep over her critically. “ _You’re_ here for the delivery?”

“One of our boys called in last minute, so they have me here as the driver. I’ve, uh, actually only been at this job about a week. My partner pulled the seniority card and he’s back in the truck,” she explains quickly. “We wanted to make sure we don’t get in any trouble since it looks like the delivery won’t be one time. My boss would kill me if I screwed up relations with the hospital, y’know?”

“Yeah, I can understand that. I used to work trucks, too.” The second his body relaxes, she knows that she’s almost there. She almost has his trust. “There’s some kind of emergency, but only the ER knows what’s really going on. They don’t tell the rest of us any more about it other than we don’t need to worry. We’re safe.”

“Good to hear that everyone’s okay, but not so much to hear that our delivery will definitely be late.” She turns her body like she’s about to walk away, but she looks back at him and bites her bottom lip. “You…don’t think I’ll be in any trouble, do you?” It’s important she seem as helpless as possible. “I tried the front doors, but they wouldn’t even let me in. Guess they won’t let anyone in unless they’re in an ambulance.”

His brows furrow. “That doesn’t sound right.” Shit. Did she mess up? “But it’s been a train wreck since this started to go down, so who knows? I wouldn’t worry about it. You’re probably fine. I’m sure they’ll understand,” he tries to reassure her but she revs up the kicked puppy expression. He hesitates and she mentally counts down before he sighs. She’s won. His resolve is broken. “Look, why don’t you come in? You can get to the front desk and make sure they know you’re here and what’s going on out there on the street.”

She pretends to hesitate. Can’t look too eager, after all. “Wait. Are…are you sure?”

“Yeah, I was headed outside to do some repairs, anyway. If the door didn’t close quick enough to stop you, then that’s just another thing for me to fix, right?” The two of them laugh. “Just…don’t tell anyone about this, okay?” He takes a step back to hold the door open.

“Thank you _so_ much,” she breathes out and shoots him a thousand watt smile. “Really, thank you _so_ , _so_ much. You have no idea how much this means to me. You’re…the best. The absolute best,” she rants as she squeezes past him and finally slides inside the hospital. “And I won’t tell a soul, I promise.”

“Yeah, yeah,” the man tries to dismiss but he flushes under her praise. “You know how to make it to the registration desk?”

“All I need to do is find the elevator and there should be signs to show me the way. You’ve already done me a solid and the least I can do is make sure you don’t get in any trouble because you did.” Politely, she holds the door open as he steps outside himself. “Really, you’re a life saver. Thanks so much again.”

“You have a good night, ma’am,” he tells her with a smile.

“And you have a better one,” she sings.

The door closes and, at last, Quinn’s inside the hospital and all alone in the hall. It was a lot easier to make it inside than she expected it’d be. Now that she’s in here, it’ll be a cakewalk to blend in. If she, an actual doctor, can’t blend in then that’d be sad. All she needs to do is find some scrubs which shouldn’t be too hard down here in the basement. There should be a place where all the hospital’s laundry is done—those bed sheets and bloody scrubs need to be cleaned somehow, don’t they? The hallway’s empty and she can’t hear any other people close by, so she can look around uninterrupted.

It takes more time than she thinks she can afford to pinpoint where the laundry room is—so much that she thinks she should take the risk in civilian clothes. Just her luck. Karma can’t make this too easy and let her have another win. On her way to the elevator, though, she finally does pass by the laundry room. This late, she didn’t expect anyone would be inside and she was right. As she walks in the room, she leaves the door cracked open so noise can drift in easier. As a whole, hospital rooms are designed to be as soundproof as possible to help maintain privacy, and she can’t afford to be snuck up on.

Quinn hunts down a clean pair of scrubs that’ll fit over her civilian clothes minus Steve’s jacket. She’s in a rush, so she can’t strip all the way down here. Some doctor or nurse will _not_ be happy when they try to come pick up their uniform. As she pulls her hair back into a ponytail, she can hear the echo of a heavy door slam shut. The sound makes her freeze because it’s the same door she came in earlier. If it’s the maintenance man that let her in, she doesn’t think he’ll be as nice as before if he catches her in here. She tries to focus more, but no other sound echoes down to her. For a second, she thinks maybe the man opened the door but didn’t actually come inside.

Because she needs to be cautious, she crouches down and moves close to the door. She stays on the other side of the door, where it isn’t cracked. Sure, she’s at a disadvantage since she can’t see outside in the hall, but no one can see her, either. She waits. In the complete silence of the basement, with her enhanced senses, another sound reaches Quinn. Her heart leaps to her throat when it registers in her brain. That was the click of a weapon. It definitely isn’t the maintenance man that came inside. A door open and closes down the hall and she breathes a sigh of relief. She has time to come up with a plan.

There are technically four options of who it could be—hospital security, police, SHIELD, or Hydra. She thinks it’s more likely to be SHIELD or Hydra. Whoever it is, they want to search each of the rooms. They have suspicion to think that someone’s hidden down here. She could make a run for it when she hears them move in another room, but the problem there is that it’ll make noise if she runs or it’ll take time to be quiet. There’s always the option of force—take them by surprise when they come inside this room. They’ll automatically lead with the hand that holds the gun which she can crush with the door. As a super soldier, she can easily overpower whoever it is and knock them out. There are plenty of places in this basement to hide a body.

Force it’ll need to be. There’s no way she can hide—not with someone armed in the hospital. If that person doesn’t find her or she doesn’t take them out, they’ll look on the top floors where there are patients. So, she sits there and waits. The footsteps become louder and louder and echo in her brain. She takes a deep breath and closes her eyes. Focus. She needs to focus. A couple of deep breaths later and her heartbeat starts to slow. Mission mindset is what she needs to be in because this isn’t much different than one. She opens her eyes and steels herself.

Slowly, the door starts to creep open. The second she can see the outline of the person’s arm and the weapon in hand, she acts. She lashes out to shove the person’s arm to the side in hopes it’ll break the bone and rams the door shut with her other elbow in more hopes that it’ll bust their nose. Pain is a nice distraction. Now, the problem is that she _didn’t pay attention_. Because she didn’t look more closely, the door doesn’t slam and there sure as hell isn’t a broken bone since the arm she has a hold on is _metal_. Her head snaps up and past the crack of the door, lifeless gray eyes peer back at her.

The Winter Soldier.

They sent the _Winter Solider_ into a populated hospital to hunt her down. Wow. Hydra must really be desperate to take her out of the picture and she’d probably be a little proud of that, but the Winter Soldier acts before she’s recovered from the shock. He throws his body against the door so it flies back and rams directly into Quinn’s head, the same move she tried to pull on him. Pain flares up across her forehead, but she takes the hit like a champ and uses that force to launch away from the doorway and back up into the room.

Quinn has three main priorities here: don’t let him back her into a corner, keep as much distance between him and her, and somehow disarm him because she can absolutely _not_ let him fire off any rounds. Thankfully, there are plenty of diversions and obstacles scattered around the room she can use to help her in this fight. So, she grabs a laundry cart that’s in her reach and whirls around to throw it at him. His weapon is in his flesh hand, so she aims at that side of his body and prays he’ll instinctively block with that hand and drop the gun in the process. Despite how damn huge those carts are, he knocks it away with his metal arm and his flesh hand snaps back up to aim his gun at her again.

She can’t hold back the snarl of rage. “Make up your mind. You let me live and now you want me to die?” He takes a step toward her, so she automatically takes one back. Her fists clench and she brings her arms up, ready to defend or attack. “Why the fuck are you so obsessed with me, pal?” There’s no emotion in his eyes as he starts to prowl toward her. Maybe he doesn’t understand her. All she’s ever heard him speak is Russian. “Ваше имя - Куинн Эстер Хайден. Вы не можете напугать меня,” she repeats what he told her the very first time he faced her down. _Your name is Quinn Esther Hayden. You cannot scare me_. To this day, she has no idea why he said that, especially when he had touched her so softly before he did. “Почему ты одержима мной?” she questions hotly.

It isn’t the time to strike up a conversation. It isn’t like he would answer her. Mindless, emotionless—a weapon, that’s all he’s ever been. From the few times they’ve faced each other down, the Winter Soldier has never been one to talk much. And he doesn’t exactly answer her here, but he does have such a visceral reaction that it takes her by surprise. Honest to God, she didn’t really think her chatter would actually make him stop in his tracks. There’s a noise from him…no, from his arm. The metal arm whirs and the individual plates shift restlessly. He stares at her with wide eyes full of confusion and…maybe a little fear? Then, miracle of miracles, he hesitates and lowers his weapon because of it.

No better chance she’ll have to attack than now. There’s another laundry cart next to her with a mountain of bed sheets and she snatches one from the top of the pile. Then, she throws the sheet up between them so he’s momentarily blinded and she has something to duck behind for cover if she needs it. Whatever spell her words put on him is broken and he moves when she does. She launches herself behind the sheet with as much speed as she can manage in such a short distance. He knocks away the sheet with his metal hand and it’s the distraction she needed.

To an extent, the sheet works. She’s miscalculated again, though. He isn’t as fast as her, but he’s faster than she’s used to. She wraps her hand around his and she’s so close to pulling the gun away from him, but he frees his metal hand up and aims for her neck. She’s not sure if he wants to choke her or if he wants to clock her and simply got the angle wrong, but whatever the motive, she can’t afford either option. The cool metal of his fingers brush against her skin, that’s how barely she avoids the blow. It’s only when she tries to dance away from his reach that she realizes he hasn’t completely missed. He latches onto the chain she keeps around her neck, so he yanks hard, thinking it’ll be enough the choke and stun her. The chain digs into her skin, but it gives way against her power and she’s back across the room.

Goddamn it, she thinks, as the Winter Soldier studies the chain he now has in hand. What’s on that chain shouldn’t fascinate him so much. There’s her engagement ring that she always takes off on missions so she doesn’t bust the diamond while bashing heads in and…the dog tags both Steve and Bucky gave her back in the war. She’s kept them in as pristine condition as possible over the years and now the Winter Soldier has them.

The sound when his handgun clatters onto the floor startles Quinn so much that she flinches and scurries away from him a little more. She watches him use his now free flesh hand to stroke over the metal of one of the dog tags. She can’t see which one he’s tracing the name of with his fingertips, but he can’t do that. No. He can’t have those. Those dog tags…they’re physical pieces of her soulmates. Those were given to her in love. One of those dog tags is the last physical piece of Bucky that she has left. Hydra tore Bucky away from her and she doesn’t want them to get his dog tag.

“Give it back,” she demands hoarsely. His head snaps up at the sound of her voice and there’s that panicked look back in his eyes. “ _Give them back_.”

The Winter Soldier takes a step back from her like he’s some kind of spooked animal. He pulls the chain close to his chest in the same protective way Quinn desperately wants to do. Animal back into a corner is what he looks like and then he _runs_. He turns around to throw open the door and it’s so sudden and unexpected that she fumbles to move in response. The Winter Soldier slams the door shut and she listens while he literally bends the doorknob on the other side. She throws her entire body against the door, super soldier strength behind the impact, and it collapses underneath her. She immediately sprints down the hall in the only direction he could’ve went to escape, but it’s no use.

The Winter Soldier has vanished and took with him the chain that has three of the most precious items Quinn owns.

 


	8. Age of Miracles

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _"There is nothing more horrifying than a miracle."_ \-- Wolfgang von Strucker.

It would be a bad idea to take the elevator, Quinn reasons when she’s about to press the _up_ button. That’s a small, cramped space where people have time to look and stare and realize who she is. Then, of course, they’ll kick up a fuss because she’s _the_ Quinn Hayden and there wouldn’t be much she could do to stop them…unless she wanted to crawl out the vent at the top of the elevator which, obviously, would not help the whole undercover deal. God, she hates that people treat her like she’s some celebrity. A person saves the world once and people lose their shit. Anyway, there’s also the much worst option where someone with SHIELD could step onto the elevator and she’d be shipped off to the Triskelion immediately, so…yeah. Elevator bad. The best option to head up to the ER is the staircase. This whole wanted woman shtick sure is a real inconvenience.

Quinn opens the door that leads to the staircase and stops to listen. There are a few people that she can hear walk up and down the steps, but doors immediately open and slam shut behind them. No, what she listens for particularly is chatter over radios and is relieved when she doesn’t hear it. There’s no police or SHIELD presence here yet which she’s thankful for but she also can’t help but point out how sloppy it is because these are prime entry and exit points.

Carefully, she closes the basement door behind her and starts a slow trek up the stairs. Walk and don’t rush otherwise she could attract unwanted attention. If Nick’s made it out of the ER, he’ll be sent to the ICU which is on another floor. She’ll check the ER first, so it’s only a floor above her. But when she looks up the staircase, directly above her, there’s someone perched on the rail. That woman’s back may be turned to Quinn, but she would know Natasha anywhere.

There’s a split second where Quinn has to decide whether she should even _try_ to make an attempt to outwit and evade Nat, but it’d be useless. Besides, Nat apparently doesn’t even need to see Quinn to know Quinn’s there because, in the silence of the stairway, her voice echoes down to Quinn as she drawls, “You’re as predictable as Steve.” See? Useless. “You really should’ve stayed in the civilian clothes. I think anyone that’s read a history book knows you’d pose as a nurse or doctor.”

A little bitchily, Quinn shoots back, “Well if it’s so obvious that I’d show up then why’re you the only person here, huh?” It had seemed like a real smart plan, in her opinion.

“Because everyone else thinks that you’d never break the law. Goody-two-shoes that you are, they think you’ll turn yourself in,” she answers which means she knows about the trouble that Quinn’s in. Nat could’ve snitched, could’ve led SHIELD here to Quinn, but she’s alone. Hope blossoms in Quinn’s chest. Nat’s on their side. “Or they think you wouldn’t lurk around the hospital and leave Steve alone.” She smiles wryly. “But I know you cared about Nick too much to not stop here and see him.”

 _Cared_ —past tense. Quinn closes her eyes and the blossom of hope is stamped down by loss and sadness. Guilt, too, if she’s honest. Mere minutes can mean life or death in the medical field and who knows what would’ve happened if she’d stayed behind and tended to Nick? “I’m sorry,” she whispers both to apologize that she didn’t do more and to Nat for her loss. This can’t be about Quinn’s emotions anymore, though, because Nat was one of the closest people to Nick. “Nat,” she murmurs and reaches down to cover Nat’s hand and catch her attention so she’ll look at Quinn. “Hey, I’m sorry. I’m sorry about what happened to him and I’m sorry that I wasn’t here to help more or to be with you.”

Nat turns her head toward the door, away from Quinn, but she catches the tear that rolls down Nat’s cheek. “You’re here now,” she points out lowly and she suddenly looks so much smaller.

This is the most vulnerable that Natasha has ever been around Quinn. Raised in the Red Room, emotions were carved out of Nat slowly and meticulously. She doesn’t have memories of her parents and all that’s left behind of them are tombstones. Quinn was raised in poverty, but thank God she had her ma and pa. Love always makes hard times easier. Nat’s only ever seen the darkest parts of the world and it’s hard to come back from that. It’s hard to love when you’ve never known what that means. Sometimes, like now, Quinn realizes this and it amazes her that Nat’s overcome so much of what the Red Room did to her, but not all of it. She doesn’t show this much vulnerability around people unless she really, _truly_ trusts that person.

So, to redirect the conversation away from her emotions, Nat asks, “Why was Nick in your apartment?” Quinn’s ashamed to admit that she hesitates. She shouldn’t. Natasha trusts Quinn, so shouldn’t Quinn do the same? “Don’t lie to me. Steve tried and you’re a worse liar than him.”

Quinn admits, “I don’t know who I can trust now.” She can start to see and feel Nat withdraw, embrace for the impact Quinn’s about to deal when she says she can’t trust Nat. “And I know you’ve kept secrets from Steve and even from me.” There’s no expression on Nat’s face, but her eyes say it all—there’s hurt because Quinn doesn’t trust her and there’s frustration with herself because she thinks she still hasn’t earned Quinn’s trust. But that’s not true because the pieces all add up here and there’s no one else she can trust more than Nat. “But everyone has secrets and that’s what caused this whole mess, so no more secrets. No more lies.” She takes a deep breath, releases, and smiles bitterly at Nat. “Better buckle in. This’ll be a ride.”

Before Quinn can even start to explain what’s happened to her the past few days, Nat interrupts with, “You trust me.” There’s no pitch at the end to make it sound like a question, but it is one. That she doesn’t think she’s worthy to be trusted further cements the fact that she should be, in Quinn’s opinion.

“Well, Tony told me not to, but I think he may be a little bit biased. I’m pretty sure he’s still a little pissed that you bamboozled him,” Quinn jokes and a little smirk pulls at Nat’s lips. “He said I trust too easy and I’ll end up dead ‘cause of it. That’s been a theme these past few days, actually—people tellin’ me I trust too much. Nick told me not to trust anyone, either.” She pauses. “But, hell, I’ve made it all this time and lived to tell the tale, so why stop now? We need as many hands on deck as we can afford, too.” No. Wait. That makes it sound like they have no other choice but to trust Nat which…is true, technically, but she also does really trust Nat. Christ, she needs to learn how to explain shit better. “More than that, I believe in you, Natasha. You’ve always had my back and you’ll always have my trust, okay?”

Quinn’s picked up some skills and it’s minuscule, sure, but she’s quick to notice the tension bleed out of Nat’s shoulders. “No wonder the world loves you so much. I almost swooned there.” Just like everyone else in their merry little batch of friends, Nat doesn’t express emotions well, but she’s pretty sure that’s Nat’s way to thank Quinn. “Tell me what mess you and Steve are in now.”

\---

Once Quinn’s done and explained the situation, Natasha is silent a minute or two while she processes what she’s been told. “I knew it was the Winter Soldier. Before Hill confirmed the ballistics, I knew.” She crosses her arms over her chest, frowns, and leans back on the rail behind them. “And you’re sure he was the one that was down in the basement with you?” It’d be a little hard to mistake the metal arm, but Quinn nods wordlessly since now isn’t the time for witty banter—not when Nat’s in the middle of a brainstorm, anyway. “That’s not his style. I’ve tried to track him down since Odessa. I’ve come up with a lot of information and he’s been credited with over two dozen assassinations. You don’t become _that_ successful if you kill in public places. It’s too messy. There’s too much attention in it.”

“He was in public when he went after Nick,” Quinn counters. “And no offense to your detective skills, but I’m sure Hydra’s probably tried their hardest to keep his activity under wraps as much as possible so there could be more public assassinations that you don’t know about. This isn’t even about the Winter Soldier, not really. This is all Hydra. Do we really need to look that deep into this one particular detail?”

“Yes,” Nat answers bluntly. “Because other than Nick, the only person he’s ever assassinated in public that I can link him to is President John F. Kennedy.”

“J.F.K?” Quinn says it so loudly that it echoes and Nat shoots her a sharp look. Quinn takes a deep breath and is a lot quieter when she hisses, “He assassinated _J.F.K_? You can’t be serious. We know who shot him—”

“I know that you’ve heard about the magic bullet theory and the ballistics match the Winter Soldier’s M.O,” Nat interrupts.

Quinn covers her face with her hands and snarls, “You’ve gotta be fuckin’ kidding me.” She drops her arms back down. “Well, if I hadn’t been sure before that I should’ve stowed my shit and went to Dallas, I sure as hell am now.” Nat raises a brow. “I’d been invited to be there with President Kennedy, but I—there was an issue with my soul marks and I was still too sensitive, so I stayed home.”

“It wouldn’t have mattered. The Winter Soldier would’ve killed him whether it was in Dallas or someplace else.”

“Fine. Okay. Whatever. What does this have to do with me?”

“You don’t make sense,” Nat murmurs. “I can see the reason behind J.F.K and Nick’s public assassinations. I know the Winter Soldier could’ve killed J.F.K without the audience, but Hydra’s scapegoat couldn’t get that close to the president. Plus, I’m sure they wanted his assassination to be a public spectacle. With Nick—” Nat tries to be clinical about this, but that’s hard to do when she cared so much about Nick. “Nick was highly trained. The Winter Soldier couldn’t hit him at the Triskelion—that’s too close to home for Hydra. They needed to catch Nick off guard.”

Quinn shakes her head. “I was never the original target. He only wanted to kill Nick. After what happened in the apartment, I’m sure he checked in with Hydra and they sent him back out after me. They’re too close to the finish line and you know they have to be almost desperate to kill me. I know too much and, in their eyes, I’m too close to the truth.”

“He killed Nick, but he didn’t kill _you_.” Nat suddenly looks extremely frustrated—like there’s a question she doesn’t have an answer to even when it seems like it’s there directly in front of her face. “ _Two times_ he’s had the chance. The apartment and the hospital. Why didn’t he kill you?”

“Gee, thanks, Natasha. Really feel the love here,” Quinn drawls sarcastically.

“This is a serious question.” Nat turns her body to face Quinn. “He abandoned the mission. He hesitated. He doesn’t do that. He didn’t stop to think when he shot me to kill that scientist in Odessa. He doesn’t stop to think about anyone else. I know because I’ve seen the casualties.” She pauses. “There’s only one person he only ever seems to hesitate around, Quinn, and it’s _you_. You told me you’d met him once before. It was in the sixties, you said. What happened back then? Tell me more about it.”

Great. From the sound of it, Quinn has an assassin stalker. Isn’t that lovely? “Well, the Cold War was on. Stories started to spread about how the Soviet’s had a monster,” she starts slowly. “Since this was around the time we realized I had a super solider serum, when those stories reached SHIELD, I was sent to hunt him down. We reasoned I had the best chance at it. I was too dumb and too proud and he whooped my ass. He had me, but…now that I think about it, he _did_ hesitate. Gun pointed at my head and he could’ve taken the shot, but he didn’t. Instead, he talked to me. No. Not talk. Just said…”

_Your name is Quinn Esther Hayden. You cannot scare me._

“Anyway, uh…he knocked me in the head. Before I blacked out…I was sure I…” That voice repeats in her head— _your name is Quinn Esther Hayden. You cannot scare me._ “I…I think I saw…” She moves a hand over her chest where her heart has started to kick up a storm. She can’t breathe. The wheels have started to turn in her brain and she slowly, she to comes to a cataclysmic conclusion.

Oh, God.

Those memories rush back and she can almost feel the harsh Siberian wind as it bites into her skin, can almost feel the snow seep past the layers of her clothes while she’s on her knees and stares up at the Winter Soldier. Her voice is hoarse as she demands he take the shot and end the centuries she’s been sentenced to live. But he doesn’t do it. Instead, he reaches down to touch the scar that’s on her temple. Gently, he traces it, too similar to the way her soulmates would do it. _Your name is Quinn Esther Hayden_ , he tells her in what she now realizes is an eerily familiar voice. The eyes. His _eyes_. They struck a nerve then and more than ever now. Too, too familiar eyes.

What she’s come to learn these past few days become pieces to a puzzle she never even knew was there and slot into place.

“Oh, _God_ ,” she breathes out in horror.

No.

Just… _no_.

No, it _can’t_ be possible.

Desperately, she tries to be practical about this, but…this…this _is_ the rational conclusion. It makes terrible, horrible sense, but she doesn’t want to admit that it does. Jesus Christ, it becomes so obvious now—the reason behind why the Winter Soldier only hesitates around her and her alone.

“It’s…” She squeezes her eyes shut and bites her bottom lip that starts to wobble in an attempt to hold back the sob. The tears come, anyway. “It’s… _Bucky_.”

She’d sworn that she had seen…seen Bucky’s face. She’d tried to reach out and touch him, but she blacked out, and when she woke up alone…she was convinced it had been a bad dream. She was convinced it was a bad dream because she had seen Bucky _die_. Three years after the war was over, the very first time her mark went dark, they tracked him down, and when she almost had him back in her arms, the base exploded and he died a second time. A body was sent home…and now she realizes that back then, _any_ body could’ve been _his_ body. That’s the problem. That’s what started all this here, isn’t it? Hydra wouldn’t have cared that much if she’d looked into any other old file, but _Bucky’s_ file? Questions would’ve started to pile up that Quinn would hunt down the answer to.

With this new perspective to see the world with, there’s _so much_ that makes sense now. Decades have passed since she first faced down the Winter Soldier and he’s always seemed ageless, unchanging in the exact same way as Quinn. Now, she can understand why. Both Quinn and Bucky had been experimented on by Zola back in the war and that serum’s kept her ageless. Why wouldn’t it do the same with Bucky? And if it helped slow his aging then it had to have increased the rate he heals at, too. That can be the only explanation for how he survived the fall from that damned train in the first place. The fall from the train could’ve also been the reason behind the Winter Soldier’s metal arm—because Bucky lost his arm in the drop. Motherfucker. _Motherfucker_. Quinn and Bucky…they’d been scared shitless because doctors and scientists assured them that Zola’s serum had no side effects, but they started to see changes in themselves that said otherwise.

Zola.

 _Zola_.

It all started with _Zola_.

He’s always been on the inside, so he’s always known what moves Quinn would make. Take a list of all the people that have been assassinated by the Winter Soldier and Quinn would confirm that those are the times her mark went dark. In her earlier days, she would bench herself from missions, too. The exact same way she did with President Kennedy. Overcome with newly refreshed grief, she would seclude herself and that left Hydra their opening. Even on his deathbed, Zola taunted her. _I’ll make sure to say hello to your Sergeant Barnes for you, Doctor Hayden_.

The basement was never a bad stroke of luck, either. He hunted her down because he _knew her_ and he ran away with that chain that had her engagement ring and the dog tags on it because he saw his own name there. The reason the Winter Soldier has never been able to kill Quinn is because she’s his _soulmate_.

Almost instinctively, Quinn wraps her arms around herself and wants to curl up in shame. Then, she freezes when an idea comes to mind. The _mark_. All these years, they’ve told her that her marks don’t work the way they should, that the serum fucked her up more than anyone could’ve ever known. But Steve name never lied to her and it stayed faded until the day he came out of the ice. It was only ever Bucky’s mark that acted up. If she looked at it now and it wasn’t dark then…then she could chalk this all up to a simple coincidence but if it _is_ dark…it’d be all the confirmation she’d need. Does…does she _want_ to see it, though? Does she _want_ to have that undeniable proof that she…she let him…

Quinn scrubs at her wet cheeks and darts back down to the basement where her clothes are. She’ll have to put them on, anyway, and she needs privacy. She needs room to breathe because this…this could break her. No. No, there’s no _could_. It _will_ break her. Before she knew about Hydra, when all she wanted to know was if the body buried in Brooklyn was her soulmate’s, it would’ve devastated her if she found out she left Bucky to die. But this? This is worse. Because if it’s true and it _is_ Bucky that hides behind that mask…she’s left him to die over and over and _over again_.

When she’s back in the laundry room where her clothes are, Quinn reaches down for the hem of her shirt. As she does, she realizes how dizzyingly similar this is to the moment she found out Bucky fell from the train. Her heart had been in her throat, she’d been sick with nerves, she was desperate for confirmation that it wasn’t true, that he was safe and alive. Here and now, she’s truly and honestly terrified of that option and she prays for confirmation that he’s still dead.

 _Do it. Do it now_ , she demands of herself. She sucks in a deep breath, holds it, and then finally lifts her shirt up so she can see her abdomen. The breath is immediately punched back out of her and she covers her mouth in horror. “No,” she murmurs into her hand. “ _No_.” She runs her nails across the _James Buchanan Barnes_ etched into her skin, as if that can possibly scratch the color out of his name. “Please, God.” _Don’t let this be real_. It can’t be true. All this time— _all this fucking time_ , he’s been alive and she _didn’t fucking help him_.

“Quinn,” Nat softly calls out from the doorway where she’s silently hovered since Quinn came in here. She walks over to stand in front of Quinn and takes Quinn’s hand before she can scratch herself bloody. “Stop and breathe,” Nat orders and Quinn does as she’s told. While Quinn does that, Nat’s eyes drop down to Quinn’s marks. “This one’s never been dark before, has it? I know it never was all the times I’ve seen you naked.” She reaches out and runs the tips of her fingers down, across Bucky’s name. “This is your other soulmate.”

“It _has_ been dark before,” Quinn interrupts harshly. “A lotta times and that’s the fuckin’ problem. They always told me it was because I was defective. First, they told me it was the trauma from double the soulmate loss. Then, when that didn’t seem reasonable, they told me it was because the serum fucked with me. And I _believed_ ‘em. Like the dumb fuck I am, I bought what they sold me and…and…” Breathe, Nat ordered, but it’s hard to do that. “Ask me the years this mark went dark and I bet you those are the years the Winter Soldier’s been active. It’s _Bucky_ , Natasha. The Winter Soldier is my _soulmate_.”

Silence settles over them and Quinn has a few minutes to stew in this realization. “There’s one other person who has James Barnes as a soulmate.” Quinn’s not sure what Nat’s point is and her expression must say that since Nat elaborates with, “Correlation doesn’t always equal causation. Maybe you _do_ have a defective mark. We need a second opinion and Steve doesn’t have a history of this same problem, does he?” Quin shakes her head. “Okay. We’ll pick Steve up and you two can check each other out.”

That’s a smart plan. Steve’s mark has never once acted up. But, “Then what? What do we do? If Bucky’s mark is dark on both of us, what’re we supposed to do from there?”

Nat’s lips purse and she answers with, “You and Steve will have to talk about that. That’s not a decision I’m allowed to make.” And that troubles Quinn because how Nat makes it sound, it’s almost like…like Quinn and Steve have to decide if…she doesn’t even know what. No, Quinn _does_ know because she’s not _that_ stupid. Fuck, she doesn’t want to think about this. “I don’t want to put you in this position, but this is the Winter Soldier. He’s an assassin—he perfected the art. He’s better than I ever was and we both know how well I did in the Red Room. Most of the intelligence community still doesn’t think he exists because of his skill. You need to think about that.”

“Thanks,” Quinn snaps. “That’s exactly what I needed added to my plate. I really appreciate it.” She scrubs a hand across her face. “I know Steve. He has and always will do whatever it takes to save Bucky. So, when we decide to mount a rescue, what’ll you do then?”

“No matter what you decide, I’ll follow you both,” Nat answers honestly. “But it has to be a collective decision. This isn’t only about Steve. _You_ have a say in this, too. You’re also the more reasonable one and I know that you know some people can’t be saved. So, if you both decide to walk down this road and we do find out who the Winter Soldier is, he’ll become a man who wears a familiar mask and that will make him infinitely more deadly.”

“Please,” she pleads hoarsely. “Please don’t put this on me. Don’t put me in this position.” Why? Why does _she_ have to be the more reasonable one? Why does _she_ have to decide whether he can be saved or not and do what needs to be done? “He _knows_ me. He’s always known me. Doesn’t that mean _somethin_ ’? That’s hope, ain’t it? There’s hope he can come back to us. Doesn’t that mean I should do whatever I can to save him?”

“He’s always known you, yes, but that still didn’t stop him.” She can tell that Nat _tries_ to be as gentle as she can. “I don’t want to put you in this position. I know who James Barnes is to you, but this isn’t James Barnes. Maybe he used to be your soulmate, but he’s not anymore. Steve is biased. He won’t be able to tell the difference between James Barnes and the Winter Soldier. There’s a lot he’s been made to sacrifice, but he would lay down on a sword before he ever hurt you or Barnes.”

Quinn can’t help but ask, “What makes you think I wouldn’t do the exact same thing?” Because she _would_. She would let the whole world burn to keep her soulmates safe. “Seventy years, Natasha—he’s spent that much time as Hydra’s prisoner. He’s in there. My soulmate is _in there_ and he deserves to be saved. I will _not_ give up on him.”

“I spent less than twenty years in the Red Room and they had their claws in so deep that I almost couldn’t be saved. What do you think seventy years has done to him? What happens if he knows you but it’s not enough to stop him? What happens if he knows _you_ and doesn’t know Steve? What if he tries to kill Steve?” The color has started to drain from her face, but Nat presses on despite how much this upsets her. She doesn’t even try to coddle Quinn anymore. “You’re my friend. You know I don’t want to hurt you this way, but I need you to see the reality of this situation. I would rather hurt you this way than see you die. You need to be prepared.”

\---

Steve’s debrief will take an insanely stupid amount of time and Quinn and Natasha aren’t so naïve that they don’t realize that. Hell, a normal mission’s debrief is awful as it is, and not only was Steve witness to the assassination of the director of SHIELD, but his wife is also…wanted. At large? She’s not sure that Hydra’s labeled her a wanted criminal _yet_. Give it time, though. It’s bound to happen. Anyway, God bless his heart, but Steve is about to be in a small room for many, many hours—Quinn shudders to think about it. She and Nat take bets on the exact time he’ll be out, but at the earliest, it won’t be until the sun is up.

Obviously, they have some time to kill on their hands which is the exact opposite of what Quinn wants. They have to _wait_ and that is terrible for her. She’s said it once and she’ll say it one more time to really hit the point home—she does _not_ do well when she has to wait in the middle of potential worldwide disasters. She’s miserable. Even more miserable than she already is which is…okay, that’s a lie because honestly? This is a welcome distraction. This is a breeze compared to what Natasha threw on her. Also, Nat is _lovely_ company when she doesn’t make Quinn think about potential horrible decisions she’ll be forced to make in the future. She’s apparently accepted that Quinn is suitably prepared and has since dropped the…Winter Soldier topic.

“We all could use some new duds,” Nat comments casually as she and Quinn leave the hospital—out the basement since the entrance still swarms with police and SHIELD or Hydra or both. “Since your apartment is a crime scene now, we can stop by mine. I should still have some extra clothes from our sleepovers.”

“You make it sound like the sleepover was at _your_ place when it’s really you’ve crashed at ours and stolen all my comfortable clothes,” Quinn mutters petulantly. “What about Steve? I know you don’t have any clothes that’ll fit him unless you’ve slept with some seriously stacked fellas that I don’t know about.”

“Remember the last time we went to Russia? I came back with that vodka, Steve wasn’t home so you crashed with me, and I—”

“—drank so much that I was both in awe and scared for your health?” Quinn interrupts and Nat smirks. “Yeah, I remember. My liver hurt out of pure sympathy for yours. You took it like a fuckin’ champ.”

Without a problem on the way there, the two of them make it to the sleek, black Corvette that Nat’s had since she came to D.C. “Don’t forget our chat about Steve’s khakis,” Nat adds and opens up the driver’s side door. “I’ll admit that I was much drunker than I let on and I took it upon myself to…do a little online shopping for him, so he _does_ actually have some new clothes at my apartment.”

“…he’ll hate them, won’t he?”

“Absolutely,” Nat answers cheerily and Quinn has to quickly slide inside the car so that no one can hear when she bursts out into loud laughter. “And he’ll have to deal with it. The tighter his shirts get, the more attention he attracts, and we can’t have that when we’re in public.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” Quinn agrees with a sigh. “I have two theories about why he does it—he either still shops for his body before the serum or he does it to torture me. It takes a whole lot to keep my hands off him when he wears those tight little shirts.” Maybe he’s started to develop an exhibition kink because there have been quite a few times where she couldn’t wait until they were home and took him to some secluded spot to fuck him senseless.

“You’re both ridiculous. Shouldn’t you two be out of the honeymoon phase by now?”

Quinn tries to hold back a smirk. “I think you should know me and Steve plenty well by now to know that there’s no better foreplay for us than taking down a bunch of evil neo-Nazi terrorists who’re trying to take over the world.”

Nat smiles playfully. “I’m warning you now that I will _not_ stop so you two can have a quickie in the bathroom.”

“I promise we’ll be on our best behavior,” she swears and puts a hand over her heart. “We aren’t nearly as bad as we used to be. I can’t tell you how many times one of the Commandos walked in on me with Steve or—” to even _think_ about him is like a sucker punch in the stomach, let alone say his name out loud. Whatever smile Quinn did have on her face immediately vanishes and she turns her head to stare out the window. Bless her, Nat decides to let the whole conversation drop and neither of them speak the rest of the car ride.

 

No one is outside Natasha’s apartment that’s _noticeable_ , but Quinn has no doubt that it’s under surveillance, so she keeps inside the car while Nat heads inside to pack. Absentmindedly, she wonders when Hydra will make their move to try and somehow pin Nat down in a place where she can be monitored at all times. After all, they probably think that she’s Quinn and Steve’s sole ally here in D.C and have to know that Quinn and Steve will eventually come to Nat for help. SHIELD or Hydra or whoever has come far from the people who used to turn their noses up at her because of the Red Room. It seems like they blindly trust Nat and don’t think she would seek Quinn and Steve out instead.

Quinn hopes the nighttime will provide a decent cover to hide the packed duffel that Nat will walk out with on her arm because if they see Nat is packed, it won’t be hard to put two and two together and Hydra will pounce. Fuck, she hates it when she has to sneak around like this. She rubs her forehead and tries to smother the itch to _move_ and _do something_. She can’t move. She can’t do it.

 _But_ …she can do something stationary. She pulls out the cell phone that Tony threw at her back in New York. She can call him. It may be really late, but he’s definitely still up. He won’t sleep until this is over. She should check in with him—not only to let him know she’s not dead but to also see if he’s found out any useful information while he’s searched around in SHIELD’s dirty laundry. And maybe…maybe _he_ has some information about the Winter Soldier. _That’ll_ be a conversation. She can picture it now, knows exactly what she’ll say to Tony. “Hey, Tony, so it turns out that neither of my soulmates are dead. The other one was kidnapped and turned into an assassin by Hydra.” That’s _perfect_.

Same as ever, Quinn doesn’t even have a chance to talk as soon as Tony picks up the phone. “Glad you’re not dead yet… _unless_ this is one of those cliché ransom calls. If that’s the case and this is the nefarious villain who demands a hefty price in return for Quinn’s safety, sorry to tell you but I’m broke. I suddenly lost all my money, my company’s went under, bad investment deals you know how the stock market can be these days, yada, yada, yah. You’ll have to keep her.”

“Ouch.”

“Oh, don’t take it so personally. The only reason I’d ever let them have you is because I know they’ll send you back after they’ve spent ten minutes with you,” he explains. “But this isn’t even a ransom call which is even more of a reason why you shouldn’t take it personally. This all remains a hypothetical situation.”

“ _Purely_ hypothetical,” she agrees with a snort. “But, yeah, I’m not dead. We have some…downtime, so I reckoned I’d call and let you know that. Wanted to see how far you’ve come on your end of the world, too. You cracked the code yet?”

Tony makes a noise in the back of his throat and it definitely isn’t a happy one. “First of all, do you know how much _shit_ SHIELD has in their databases? Does _anyone_ in that place know what a pen and paper is?” Okay, so Quinn will take that as a _no_. “Second, do you know how many times I’ve wanted to say _fuck it_ , throw a suit on, fly down there, and literally blow a hole in the chest of each and every person in Hydra’s IT department? They’ve created some kind of an AI. No matter what I do or where I go, the AI is there to block us. Jarvis is currently in the middle of a digital war with this AI.”

No wonder he’s so cranky—his ego’s been bruised. “Sounds about where we are, too. We solve one problem and a billion more show up to take the mantle.” She chews her bottom lip and decides, “I think you don’t need to break into their systems anymore. We think we know what Hydra’s master plan is, so we should focus on how to handle that. I should, uh, warn you that this won’t make you any happier.”

“ _Great_ ,” Tony drawls sarcastically. “This have to do with Project Insight?”

“Remember how, after New York, you apparently had some pointers for SHIELD about their turbines or whatever?”

“ _No_.”

“Yes.” He proceeds to curse up a blue streak and she winces on his behalf. She can relate a little on how he feels. She knows what it’s like to have an idea meant to help people be twisted around to hurt and kill instead. “Three helicarriers, with your tech on them, synced up with advanced satellites that can track anyone anytime and anywhere, armed to the teeth and able to blow away who knows how many people at a time.”

Tony stops talking so suddenly that she thinks he actually hung up and she briefly pulls the phone away from her ear to check that he’s still on the line. Hesitantly, she calls out, “Tony?”

“What? Oh. Yeah, sorry, I had Jarvis pull up those blueprints I sent SHIELD. Tell you what, why don’t I multitask? Jarvis can duke it out with Hydra’s asshole AI and I can come up with a way to counteract the helicarriers. I helped build this tech, so it shouldn’t be hard to break it back down. And once Jarvis wins—because I have no doubt that he won’t—we’ll know whatever else they have on the backburner. There’s no way they’ll be able to hide from us.”

“I don’t want them to hide from _anyone_ ,” she snarls under her breath. Isabella’s words suddenly echo in her head: _you need to expose this. You need to expose_ them. “All they’ve ever done is hide in the dark like the little nasty fuckin’ parasites that they are and they’ve _thrived_ ‘cause of that. Even if we stop them, they’ll crawl back in their holes to fade back into the history books and they’ll recover. I don’t want them to have that chance. I want to put them front and center. I want the world to know Hydra’s out there.”

“You want to leak their data?”

“That’s exactly what I want,” she realizes out loud. “I want to expose Hydra for what they are. I want everyone to know what Hydra’s done up until this point. Anyone who is and ever has been with Hydra won’t be able to hide anymore. No more lies. No more secrets. All of Hydra’s dirty little secrets, it all goes public.”

“It won’t only be Hydra,” Tony points out. “I can’t separate Hydra from SHIELD here. Hydra, SHIELD, it’ll _all_ be leaked. Are you really ready for the world to know what SHIELD’s been up to all these years?” He stops and scoffs. “Who the fuck am I talking to? _Of course_ you don’t care about that.”

It _does_ make Quinn hesitate because there’s a lot she’s done on SHIELD’s dime, but…this’ll be punishment. As much as she talks, _she_ helped make this mess. If she’d done more and paid better attention, Hydra wouldn’t have ever come back from the dead. The world should see Quinn for what she is, too. “Can you do it?” she asks.

“You know I can.”

“Then do it.”

\---

As the sun starts to rise and both Quinn and Natasha have stopped to eat at a diner and each taken a quick nap for a boost, Quinn eventually has to come clean about the plan that she and Steve came up with on how they’d meet back up. There’s a nice chunk of time where there’s an awkward silence between them and Quinn squirms under Nat’s speechlessness. In their defense, they didn’t have a whole lot of time on their hands to come up with a better plan other than Quinn would stalk Steve around town and wait until Steve had the chance to escape from SHIELD’s watchful eyes. Immediately, Nat starts to poke holes in the plan and Quinn almost has a panic attack when she thinks about what they’re supposed to do if SHIELD decides not to let Steve leave the Triskelion.

To say that the Triskelion has never seemed more enormous than it does now is an understatement, but Nat seemed more in the mood to remind Quinn how terrible spies she and Steve make rather than actually be worried. There’s a nice open area outside the entrance to the Triskelion that Nat has no problem to waltz up to and settle down at. To literally be on Hydra’s doorsteps this way dials Quinn’s paranoia to a hundred on a scale of one to ten, but Nat doesn’t seem worried one bit. Quinn reasons that if Nat, who is an expert spy, isn’t worried then Quinn shouldn’t be, either. Holy shit, that whole _hide in plain sight_ tactic actually works too damn well.

“You mentioned a flash drive,” Nat comments casually. “Is it the one I had on the Lemurian Star?” Quinn hums the affirmative. “Give it to me.” The request is so unexpected that Quinn turns her head to raise a brow at Nat. “I have a plan, but I need the flash drive.”

Quinn assumes that Nat will clue her in on what exactly this plan of hers is, but she doesn’t. Nat remains silent, so Quinn bluntly asks, “What’s the plan?” Nat’s answer is to only hold her hand out expectantly. “I know we’ve had an extremely long night, but did I _not_ talk about how trust and open communication is pretty much life and death here?”

Nat rolls her eyes, but concedes with, “Look, I need to talk to Steve.” That explained jack shit and it’s written on Quinn’s face because Nat huffs in frustration. “ _You_ trust me, but the two of us have a history that I don’t share with Steve. I really messed up on my mission with him, so he’s obviously not happy with me and he doesn’t know you’ve recruited me. I need to know if I have his trust or not.”

“Aw, c’mon, Nat,” Quinn starts to complain. “You know he trusts you.”

“No, I actually don’t know that,” Nat shoots back coolly. “I know you think he does and maybe it’s true. Maybe he _does_ trust me, but I need to hear it from Steve. It _has_ to come directly from him before I can believe it.” She turns her head away from Quinn. “This is important to me.”

Quinn’s expression softens and she immediately caves in. “I know it is. You can have it, but I _would_ appreciate it if you told me what you plan to do with it.”

“Nothing,” Nat says with a shrug. “All I want him to see is me with something that you last had. By the way, I don’t think you should be around for this. I don’t want you to influence his decision with those…puppy dog eyes of yours.”

“I don’t—”

“Quinn, shut up. You’re adorable.” Quinn pouts which…probably doesn’t help her case. “Head back to the park, to the bathroom where we put Steve’s clothes and wait there. That’s as much privacy that you two can afford to check your marks. If I’m with him then I’m with him and if I’m not…I’ll still try to help you two as much as I can under SHIELD’s thumb.”

No matter how much she tries to push his buttons, Steve will always trust Natasha, but she won’t believe Quinn no matter how much she tries to tell her otherwise. All Quinn can do now is support Nat’s plan. The Triskelion is on Theodore Roosevelt Island and there’s a park across the Potomac that takes about thirty minutes to walk to on foot. So, Quinn stands up, reaches down in her pocket, and then hands Nat the silver drive wordlessly and without hesitation. Before she leaves, she squeezes Nat’s shoulder briefly in a show of support.

Other people wouldn’t understand Natasha’s reasons, but Quinn does. There’s no one that knows the impact Steve has on people better than Quinn does. Once upon a time, she’d been in Nat’s same position—in a similar position, anyway. It doesn’t take much time for a person to be around him before they strive to be their very best for him and Quinn had to deal with that back in the war. Steve…she once compared him to the sun. When someone’s seen the darkest parts of the world, to have the sun shine down on them so radiant and powerful and warm, they’d do just about anything to keep that. A person _wants_ to be better when they’re around Steve. Some people, too evil or too lost in the dark, can resist Steve, but not many. She…she’d actually talked about this with Bucky once and…

Quinn can’t help but wonder…is _Bucky_ too lost now? Seventy years that he’s spent in the dark. That and that alone is what he’s come to known. No doubt that Hydra’s conditioned him with…with pain and fear. He’s never known more than their cruelty. Does…does he even remember Quinn and Steve? He possibly can’t. They’ve had to have done _something_ to his mind because immediately after the war? There’s no way in hell that he would’ve rolled over for him. They must’ve…oh, God. They must’ve _broken_ him. Another wave of emotion crashes over her and Quinn has to stop and squeeze her eyes shut. There’s a lump in her throat and she can’t breathe. Without Natasha here to distract her, of course Quinn’s thoughts would lead back to Bucky. She’s only human and she’s made mistakes that have caused her soulmate to suffer more than she can possibly imagine.

Franticly, she tries to remember him as she knew him in the war—pictures the way his eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled wide, the way she pressed her thumb against the dimple in his chin and he would tilt his head to teasingly bite at her finger, the way she knew he’d been in her secret chocolate stash because his kisses were so much sweeter but eventually she didn’t care anymore, the way her heart pounded when his arms slid around her waist. And she _does_ do that. She _remembers_ , but now pain stains those memories. It feels like someone’s shoved a red-hot knife in her heart and it sinks down deep. _Hydra_ , those _fuckers_ , they’ve doused her soulmate’s name in horror.

There’s another memory that comes to mind. The very first time that she’d slept in the same bed as Steve and Bucky. She and Bucky had woken up before Steve and she remembers his voice, clear as a bell. _I can’t sit here and say I’ll make it through this war, so take care of Steve for me no matter what_. That’s what the two of them swore they’d do. They promised each other they would take care of Steve in a war that was deadest to swallow him whole.

Neither Quinn nor Bucky had any clue that someday, she may actually have to protect Steve from Bucky.

\---

Even across the river, Quinn can hear a boom that comes from the Triskelion, and there’s a column of smoke that people around her stare and point to. It can only mean that Hydra _did_ want to keep Steve and he wasn’t about to let them have him without a fight. It shouldn’t be too much longer before Steve and Natasha meet back up with Quinn and as much as that should relieve her, she actually becomes a billion times more anxious.

See, with all these memories of her and Steve and Bucky from the war, it finally starts to _really_ sink in that the Winter Soldier is her soulmate and there are consequences of that. Steve will be with Quinn soon and it’ll then be that the Winter Solider is _their_ soulmate, and that’s the problem. Steve…there’s no way he _won’t_ hate her over this. She could’ve saved Bucky. She should’ve known. She shouldn’t have listened to anyone who told her to ignore her active soul mark. For _decades_ , Bucky’s soul cried out to Quinn for help and she _didn’t save him_. And when it comes to Bucky, this is the one sin that Steve never forgive her for. He’ll leave her. He’ll never want to ever see her. Not only has she lost Bucky, but she’ll lose Steve. Soon, she won’t have either of her soulmates _again_ and it’s all _her fault_. She _deserves_ this.

The inevitable fallout looms over her head. It buzzes in her brain and stings at her and it only ramps up her anxiousness. And it’s so bad that it doesn’t even help to see Steve and Natasha both, safe and sound. Hell, it takes a whole lot of willpower to not break out in tears.

Nat clears her throat. “I’ll be in the car.”

Quinn stands up from the bench she’s been parked at since she came to the park and feels shaky. Unbalanced. Her entire world is on a wire and she’s scared it’s about to all come out from under her feet. She knows she’s stiff and distant as she walks up to stand in front of Steve. She doesn’t realize how she’s physically prepared herself for his loss until he tries to reach out to touch her and she flinches away from the contact. Guilt presses down on her even more when he looks hurt by her reaction, but she shakes her head and turns her head toward the little bathroom close to them.

In the bathroom, she locks the door behind them and has to keep her back turned to him because it’s harder and harder to breathe past this panic. “Quinn,” Steve’s voice cuts past it and she clenches her fist around the door handle. “What’s wrong?” He’s close to her, but doesn’t touch. “What happened while I was with SHIELD? Tell me. What’s wrong? _Please,_ Quinn.”

And, of course— _of course_ , that’s when Quinn breaks. She’s been able to stow her shit for the most part and not have a public breakdown, but around Steve, it all drops. She’s scared shitless she’ll lose him, but she can’t stay away from him. She’s never been able to stay away from him. “I fucked up,” she confesses and drops her head forward to knock it against the door. “Steve, I fucked up _so bad_.”

“Then, talk to me about it,” he pleads.

“I’m _scared_ ,” she admits as her bottom lip wobbles. Tears prick the corners of her eyes and she wipes them away, but more come and fall. “I’m so scared you’ll hate me for this.” She makes a sound that’s a mix between a hysterical laugh and a sob. “Fuck, I already hate myself for it. There’s no way _you_ won’t.”

Steve moves and, like always, Quinn moves, too. She’s in his arms before he reaches back out for her and she shoves her face against his chest. He sighs and puts his chin on top of her head. “You know that won’t ever happen. I could never hate you.” He squeezes her harder. “Trust me, okay? I can _never_ hate you. Now, can you please tell me what happened? Whatever it is, we can fix it.”

Quinn doesn’t know that it _can_ be fixed, but she can’t put this off any longer. At the very least, she can be with him until they take down Hydra. He wouldn’t send her away and lose another pair of hands in this war. “I think…” She takes a deep breath. “I think I know who the Winter Soldier is.” She steps out of the warmth and security of his arms and realizes how _cold_ reality can be. “But I need to check somethin’ else first.” She takes his hand and leads him over in front of the mirrors that line the wall over the sinks. “Take off your shirt.”

“…why?” He questions warily.

“Take off your shirt,” she repeats. “Please,” she adds as an afterthought. Someone in as precarious a position as hers really should be a lot nicer and not demand shit left and right. “Face the stalls, too.” Steve, like her, doesn’t like to do what he’s told without a reason. At the skeptic look on his face, she shakily says, “Do it for me? I’m already scared shitless as it is and I promise that it’ll all make sense in a second.”

Steve’s expression softens and he proceeds to do as he’s told without another word. Quinn, still too scared to look, drops her eyes and watches her hands while she pulls a compact mirror out of her pocket. It was the one she made sure to borrow from Nat. She opens it and stares at her teary-eyed reflection. She listens to the rustle of fabric as Steve goes through the slow and tedious process of getting out of his stealth suit. Easier than all the other versions of his suit, but it isn’t perfect and still takes a little time to strip.

“Okay,” Steve breathes out and she lifts her eyes to stare at him. He raises his arms for a second before he drops them back down by his side. “Now what?”

This isn’t something she can avoid any longer, but it doesn’t make her limbs feel any less like lead as she closes the distance between her and Steve. She clutches his arm for a second as she passes him by, and then…and then she can see his back and the two names that run across his shoulder blades.

And…there it is. _James Buchanan Barnes_. Each individual letter as dark as it was the day Steve met Bucky, dark as it was the day Quinn met Steve and Bucky, dark as it is on Quinn’s own skin. Quinn traces his name with the tips of her fingers and Steve’s body momentarily tenses at the contact.

Quinn drops to her knees like the strings holding her up this whole time have been cut and reality brutally crashes down on her. Poor Steve has no idea what’s happened to her and spins around to crouch down in front of her. His hands are on her shoulders and says her name, each repetition more desperate than the last, but she’s sobbing too much to speak. Instead, she grabs the hem of her shirt, pulls, and leans back from him so he can see both her soul marks, active.

It takes Steve _at least_ a minute to process that _her_ marks aren’t dark. He’s stunned into silence and his eyes drop to the mirror in her hand. It probably takes another whole minute for him to understand what Quinn’s idea was. He touches his bare torso, his eyes raise up to the mirrors that line the wall, and his eyes widen. He snatches the compact mirror out of Quinn’s hand, faces the stalls, and goes through the shaky process of trying to use the compact mirror to stare at his soul marks in the reflection of the bathroom mirrors.

Steve’s voice is high with confusion and panic when he says, “ _Quinn_?”

“It’s _him_ , Steve,” Quinn manages through her sobs. “The Winter Soldier…it really is Bucky.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, so I saved the notes until the end because I didn't want to spoil anyone before they read the chapter. Here it goes.  
> I REALLY DID THAT™ TO Y'ALL, HUH  
> Anyway, look, I know you guys wanted the reveal to be on the bridge, but I kept thinking to myself that Natasha wouldn't bring up the point that the Winter Soldier keeps letting Quinn live and that Quinn wouldn't start adding up all the pieces when Natasha posed that question.   
> Technically speaking, it'll still be a super huge and emotional fight on the bridge because Quinn and Steve can't be totally sure it's Bucky until they see his actual face. And I feel like I should reward you guys with some good angst because this chapter is so freaking late.  
> Oh, and it's about time that I personally thank Sarah and Jay who both listen to my screaming about writing, take it all in grace and style, and who helped kick my ass back in gear to get this chapter out.  
> I LOVE ALL OF YOU SO FLIPPING MUCH AND THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR YOUR PATIENCE AND FOR DEALING WITH MY BULLSHIT. YOU ARE ALL THE ABSOLUTE BEST


	9. Twisted Chains

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Just when Quinn thought it couldn't get any worse...she comes face-to-computer screen with an old nemesis.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In true (late) Thanksgiving spirit, I want to take a second to make sure I remind you guys of just how fucking much I love you. I know I don't update on a regular schedule and bless all your hearts, you put up with it and still leave me the best reviews and provide me with so much love. It's actually insane and I'll never get over how much you support me and the story. Seriously, I LOVE YOU GUYS.  
> Please have an insanely long canon chapter as a gift of my love for you.  
> Heads up, this still isn't going to have the bridge scene. I forgot exactly how much plot there is between the start of the movie and when Steve and Bucky meet on the bridge. BUT YOU GET BUCKY IN THE NEXT CHAPTER SO PREPARE YOUR BODIES AND HEARTS NOW.  
> Also, poor fucking Steve. He's having to watch his wife have breakdown after breakdown. I don't like putting Quinn through the ringer, but she literally did help found SHIELD and she's finding out that it was taken over by her biggest enemy. We all know Quinn as a character and she's going to feel like it's all her fault. Like, this movie is not a good one for Quinn. Be prepared for ANGST. (I keep picturing the happy ending the trio is going to get in the future to help me through these angsty times.)  
> Again, SO MUCH LOVE FOR YOU GUYS AND I HOPE YOU LIKE IT!

_James Buchanan Barnes._

Steve reaches over his shoulder and brushes his hand across the mark. “No,” he whispers and shakes his head. The compact mirror clatters to the floor loudly when he drops it and she twitches at the sudden loud noise. “No, it’s not true.” He’s in denial. Who can blame him? Hell, she’s still stuck between denial and acceptance herself. Who _wants_ this to be true? What kind of person would actually want this for their soulmate? Does it really make her a bad person to rather have Bucky be dead than be in the hell that he’s been in all this time? “It has to be a trick. This isn’t real.” He whips around on his heel and stares down at her, eyes wide with panic. “He’s dead. I saw him—”  

“— _fall_ ,” Quinn interrupts. She scrubs her cheeks and sniffles. “You saw him _fall_ , Steve. You didn’t see him die. And I didn’t, either, technically. There was a bunker that some chump led me to, a bunker he was supposed to be in, and it exploded and I never ever saw him. Neither of us, we’ve never physically seen a…identifiable corpse.”  

“But his mark on us was faded,” he stresses. “The marks don’t lie—” he stops short when he realizes the mistake in what he’s said. It can’t be both ways. Either the marks don’t lie which would mean that Bucky nearly died then and is alive now or the marks do lie which would mean that they couldn’t be trusted now.

“Yeah, that’s true. They _don’t_ lie,” she agrees. “I know that now, but I should’ve known it sooner. They spat me that bullshit about how the serum made my marks bad, but _your_ name never lied to me. When you were in the ice, it was faded and when you woke up, it was dark. What my serum does best is heal, so why the hell would it mess with my mark? Not even both marks, either. Just that one mark?” Why? _Why_ didn’t she see this sooner? “And maybe my serum is a cheap knockoff, but yours ain’t. They can lie and convince me that my serum’s a fuck-up, but not you.”  

Steve slumps back against a bathroom stall door and slowly slides down until his ass hits the floor. “He’s dead.” He stares past her shoulder, at the wall, expression blank. She’s seen this look on him before, immediately after Bucky fell from the train. She understands it now, a little. She’s numb from the shock, too. “I watched…” He trails off. Suddenly, his face pales and he covers it with his hands. He moans like he’s in pain and she understands why when he says, horrified, “I didn’t look for him. I let him fall and I didn’t look for him.”  

“Steve, no. This isn’t on you. There was no way you could’ve known. We didn’t know at that time. This…this one’s on me. I was the one who didn’t look when I should’ve,” she confesses quietly and turns her head away when his eyes settle back on her. She scoots backward to lean on the wall behind her, pulls her legs up close to her chest, and wraps her arms around them. “Before he came to our apartment, I’ve actually faced down the Winter Soldier twice. The once was with Natasha in Odessa, but the other was in the sixties. It was the same year we found out about what the serum did to me, so I was dumb and reckless when they sent me to hunt him down. We tussled, but he was better than me. He could’ve killed me. He had the perfect opportunity to do it. I was on my knees, he had a gun to my head, but same as at the apartment…he didn’t take the shot. Instead, he clocked me and before I blacked out—” she bites down on her bottom lip. “I swore I saw Bucky’s face.”  

Steve’s silent as that information sinks in for him. She dares to sneak a peek at him and he doesn’t…look as pissed as he should be. Instead, his brows are knitted in confusion. “Why didn’t you tell me?”  

“You mean why didn’t I tell you before all this went down or tell you after we’d seen him at the apartment? Either way, I didn’t ever think it was all that important,” she replies. “And up until now, I always told myself that it was a dream or some kind of hallucination because what else was I supposed to think? I’d seen him die twelve years before. I didn’t think more about why—after all the horror stories we heard about the Winter Soldier and the bodies he left behind him—I was the only person the Winter Soldier didn’t kill. I didn’t think more about why we were the only two souls left alive in that place and somehow SHIELD found me safe and mostly in one piece at my rendezvous point.” The sheer amount of shame makes her almost choke on her words. “I didn’t think and I sure as hell didn’t act and because of that, Hydra took back their power. They took our soulmate and did God knows what to him. Jesus Christ, Steve, I’m sorry.”  

Quinn has some nerve, to sit here and ask for mercy. She needs to shut up and accept what’s about to come. Besides, there’s not much else she can say. She waits, expects Steve’s fury to come. Her stomach’s all twisted up in nervous knots and she holds her breath while she waits for him to blame her the way she should be blamed. But…he doesn’t do that. He crawls over to sit next to her, wraps an arm around her shoulders, and tucks her close against his side. “Tell me more,” he softly requests. “I want to know it all and I want to know what’s happened to make you think it’s him.”  

She shakes in his arms and clutches onto him, even when she knows she doesn’t deserve comfort. She does what she’s asked and proceeds to explain each and every shred of evidence she has to Steve. In the middle of it, he takes her hand in his. By the end of it, he squeezes her hand so hard his knuckles are white and she can’t feel it. He breathes out a harsh breath that he’s probably held the whole time and she’s not in much better shape. Around Steve, she can be her most vulnerable and she can cry as much as she needs to before she has to collect herself and head out there to save the world. This is her fault and she doesn’t really have room to cry, but she can’t help it. She didn’t mean to cause this. God knows that she would’ve died to save Bucky from all this pain, but those are pretty words that don’t mean shit. Instinct’s always told her that he was out there. Even her body came up with every possible way to show her he was alive, and she still didn’t listen.  

“I have no idea what they’ve done to him, to keep him…under their control,” she manages to spit out. “But, deep down, he’s always realized who I am to him. He knew me then and he knows me now. And when he’s needed me most, I always turned my back on him. When my mark went black, that was his soul and he needed me, and I didn’t come for him.” She fists his shirt in her hand and cries harder. “I don’t understand it, Steve. How can you even stand to be in the same room as me? How can you look me in the eyes and not hate me for what I’ve done to him? This is all my fault.”  

“This is _not_ your fault. _Hydra_ did this,” he snarls. He takes her face in his hands, wipes his thumbs across her wet cheeks, and his expression softens. “You won’t let me blame myself? Then I won’t let you blame yourself. You know who caused all this. He’ll know it, too. When we save him, you know he won’t blame you. None of this is on you, okay?”  

No. No, no, no. He can’t possibly—it can’t be that easy. He can’t forgive her that easy. There’s no way in hell she doesn’t deserve…something…anything as punishment. She caused this. This is all on her. Hydra started it, but she always had the chance to finish it before it ever got this bad. “I should’ve stopped them before they ever made it this far—”  

“And then they would’ve killed you,” he interrupts. “No one knew about this. Even Tony and Jarvis didn’t notice it—that’s how well they’ve hidden themselves. Hydra’s done all that they can to keep you and everyone else off their trail. They’ve lied but you’ve finally started to see past it and now they want to kill you.” Actually, they’ve only tried to take her prisoner. They haven’t actually tried to kill her yet. Steve huffs because he must see that argument on her face. “Don’t pretend they wouldn’t kill you if they took you into custody. My point is that the only reason you’re alive now is because you’re not alone, but you were all the other times your mark’s been dark. If you asked questions, they would’ve killed you and you’d be no help to Bucky. Worse, they could’ve taken you, too. I’d be here alone while Hydra has you both. Where would I be then?”  

“Alone and probably dead,” she reluctantly admits and maybe that’s true. Maybe it is better this way, but she still feels like shit about this. Goddamn him. He can’t be this…nice. Not about this. But, hell, this is Steve, so of course he can. Still, it really don’t feel all that fair to not have the blame put on her. “Steve—”  

“I know you want me to, but I can’t blame you for this. You didn’t—” he closes his eyes briefly and takes a deep breath before he continues. “You didn’t take him from the bottom of those mountains and turn him into the Winter Soldier. Hydra did this to him and it’s our responsibility to tear them apart. Not only because of what they’ve done to him and to us, but because of what they did to all the other people they’ve hurt or killed over the years.”  

Okay. Okay, that helps. That does help put the world back in focus. As much as she wants to sit around and mope, she can’t let the guilt crush her. Not yet. She has shit to do. “I know.” This is their responsibility. Back in the war, they vowed to take down Hydra. It was the unspoken oath a person took when they became a Commando. “I know it’s up to us to do this.” More especially for her since she’s the one that didn’t take Hydra down proper the first time.  

There’s another moment of silence between them. The quiet before the storm. This could very well be the last moment of peace they have. While Quinn tries to focus, it finally must’ve sunk in for Steve what this all truly means because he suddenly says, “Bucky’s alive.”  

“Yeah,” she breathes out. “Yeah, he is.”  

Steve turns to face her and looks so sad and vulnerable that she reaches out to wrap a hand around the back of his neck and force him to tilt his head down so she can press her forehead to his. “He’s alive,” he repeats shakily. His arms slide back around her waist and he squeezes hard. “We have to save him.”  

Quinn has an epiphany. More than ever, it’s clear now that it always come back to Bucky. He has always been the one person who has driven Quinn and Steve. In life and death, he pushes them. All they wanted, after they lost Bucky that first time, was to watch Hydra burn. She can’t say the same for Steve, but she’s out for blood now. Hydra will die this time around and she’ll be there to piss on their ashes. They will save Bucky. Steve is with her this time around and the two of them together can reach Bucky, she knows they can do it. Her soulmate’s been lost seventy years and she won’t stop until he’s back in their arms. Not even death can stop her. Hydra could kill her, and she’ll claw her way out of the grave to bring him home.  

“We will,” she swears with every ounce of her heart and soul to Steve…and to Bucky. “I swear to God, Steve, we’ll bring him home.”  

\---

So, with a renewed sense of purpose, Quinn’s able to calm down a whole, whole lot. Well, her purpose never really dwindled, but when she was alone, the stress and panic damn near overwhelmed her. Goes to show what exactly can happen when she’s alone and stuck inside her head.  

Anyway, she decides that now’s the time to act, so she leans away from the warmth and security of Steve’s arms and moves to pick up the duffel with fresh clothes inside. Like she suspected, his nose crinkles in distaste when he sees the outfit Natasha picked out for him, but he’ll have to suck it up. Quinn thinks maybe Nat didn’t only drunk-shop for Steve because she doesn’t remember buying these clothes herself. But none of that matters because this is one of those times where they have to step out of their comfort zone. It’ll be harder for people not notice them when they’re dressed like a couple of hipsters.  

As they step out of the bathroom in their new clothes, she can’t help but think about how it seems like all they do is continually trade one problem for a hundred more. Steve is officially a wanted man now and it’s hard as hell to stay on the down-low when you’re two of the most famous people in the world. Why the actual fuck are people so obsessed with her and her husband? It sucks ass to be a superhero sometimes. And not only do they have that problem, there’s also the issue of where they need to find out what Nick died for and see what’s on the flash drive, but that requires a computer. She doesn’t doubt that the second that sucker’s plugged in, Hydra will be on them in no time.  

“Let’s head to the mall,” Natasha proposes and sounds almost cheery about it. Quinn knows that Nat is the ultimate expert when it comes to all spy-type matters so she usually trusts Nat’s word, but this pushes it. She can’t possibly be serious. “Hey, there’s an _Apple_ store at the mall, isn’t there? How mad do you think it’ll make Stark when he hears we used a _MacBook Pro_?”  

Quinn takes a deep breath. “Okay,” she starts slowly. That nap she had earlier didn’t help refresh her at all and she desperately needs another one. Her patience has started to wear thin. “Maybe there was some kind of an error in translation. Russian’s your first language, after all. So, I’ll repeat what I said—we need to know what’s on the flash drive. The flash drive, by the way, that SHIELD knows we have and are most definitely on the lookout for.”  

Nat quickly looks at Quinn in the rearview mirror. “No, I understood you both times when you said it and like I said before—let’s take a trip to the mall.” She apparently doesn’t see the need to explain why they’re headed to a mall where there will be a whole bunch of people who can clock them.  

Steve knows Quinn like the back of his hand and can probably sense her rising irritation. “I think,” he says loudly to cut off whatever smartass comment Quinn had planned, “what Quinn wants to know is why we’re going to a public place like the mall when what we need to do is stay low.”  

“You two need to learn how to read the situation better. Sometimes, public is better,” Nat explains. “We all know that SHIELD will come after the flash drive. If SHIELD’s smart, and they are, then they’ll send our STRIKE team in because they’ve worked with us the most. They’ll be armed and ready for a fight—”  

“—unless we’re in public and then they have to be discreet about it,” Quinn finishes for Nat after the realization smacks her in the face. Why it didn’t dawn on her sooner, she doesn’t have a damn clue. She’ll blame it on the severe lack of sleep and ignore how the super soldier serum doesn’t let her feel the effects of sleep deprivation until she’s went an insane amount of time without sleep.  

“There are also more entry and exit points in a mall which is definitely an advantage we’ll need,” Nat tacks on. “Unless you two have an impenetrable bunker stashed away somewhere that I don’t know about, of course. Actually, don’t tell me about it. That would cause more problems.”  

“Got the point, okay?” Quinn sighs and runs a hand through her hair. “You win this round, Romanoff.”  

“I always do.”  

\---

Thank the Lord that Steve was not around when the Cold War was on because he would’ve been dead the second he stepped out in the field. Yeah, sure, Quinn’s not exactly a master spy herself, but she did and still does do a lot better than her poor husband. Steve, like Quinn, has always been a better soldier than spy. He’s paranoid and maybe Quinn is, too, but her paranoia isn’t because of Hydra. No, what has her so paranoid is to be in a public sphere because people, especially kids, clock her fast. Still, she keeps a level head. Steve, however, not so much. She can’t count how many times he’s looked over his shoulder since they walked in the mall.  

“First rule of going on the run,” Nat speaks up and Steve snaps his head forward. “Don’t run, walk.”  

“If I run in these shoes, they’re gonna fall off,” Steve replies a little bitchily. He’s still not happy about Nat’s choice of clothes. Actually, he’s probably in an all-around bad mood because of their whole situation. Hydra and not-so-dead soulmate and catastrophe and all that.  

“Y’know what? I actually like this look,” Quinn comments and motions toward her outfit. She’s in a pair of ripped jeans, has on a white tee-shirt, and over that has a red and black flannel shirt. She could do without the beanie and fake glasses. The boots are a little impractical to run in, but that’s not the point. No one on the STRIKE team would ever think to look for her in an outfit like this and that’s what they need. Usually, Quinn dresses for comfort and who knew that this outfit would be so comfortable? The boots are really cute, too.  

“When it’s not the end of the world, I’ll take you shopping,” Nat says and sounds a little too smug.  

The _Apple_ store isn’t hard to track down and the three of them walk inside, easy as that. It almost seems too easy, but that’s more than likely Quinn’s paranoia at work. Maybe if she stopped to think before she dives headfirst into shit and used some spy skills she’s accumulated over the years and that Nat has instilled in her, she wouldn’t have so many damn problems. Think before she acts, that’s the real lesson today.  

Nat immediately zeroes in on the _MacBook Pro_ display and takes a spot in front of one of the laptops. Steve and Quinn move to stand on each side of her as she starts to click away at the keyboard. “The drive has a Level Six homing program,” Nat informs them. Quinn, personally, has no idea how the hell Nat can know so much when she hasn’t even stuck the flash drive in the computer yet. Maybe Nat looked into it more before she handed it over to Nick. “So, as soon as we boot up, SHIELD will know exactly where we are.” Now that there, Quinn did know.  

“How much time do we have?” Steve asks.  

“Uh…about nine minutes from…” Nat pops the flash drive into the USB port. “Now.” Steve, more paranoid than Quinn, doesn’t look down at the laptop. He watches their entry point at the entrance of the store. Quinn and Nat both watch as multiple windows pop up on the screen and Nat continues to type away. “Fury was right about that ship. Somebody’s trying to hide something. This drive is protected by some sort of—”  

“—AI?” Quinn finishes and Nat raises a brow at her. “Tony mentioned it to me when I called him to check in. He’s run into this same problem and it’s been a pain in his ass, too. Jarvis has been at war with this AI since they’ve tried to hack back into Hydra and still is while Tony comes up with a plan to shut those helicarriers down.”  

“Well, I can see why it’s been such a problem, even for someone like Stark. It keeps rewriting itself to counter my commands.”  

Steve huffs in frustration. “Guess that means you can’t override it then, huh?”  

“We’ve already established that Stark hasn’t cracked the code yet and the person who developed this is slightly smarter than me. Slightly.” Nat pauses. “There may be another way, though. I’m gonna try running a tracer.” Window after window pops up on the laptop’s screen. “This is a program SHIELD developed to track hostile malware, so if we can’t read the file, maybe we can find out where it came from.” Leave it to Nat, the ballerina at heart, to always find a way to dance around a problem. They can make do with this. It isn’t the same as full access to whatever information the AI protects, but who’s to say there won’t be a lot to learn from where this AI was born.  

Before anyone else can put another word in, an _Apple_ employee suddenly slides up beside them and politely asks, “Can I help you guys with anything?”  

In relation to where the _Apple_ employee stands, Steve is directly in front of him and then it’s Natasha and, lastly, Quinn. So, Quinn has the luxury to duck her head down to hide the deer caught in headlights expression. Steve, however, does not and she knows he has that same look on his face, too. Nat, prepared and on her toes, saves their asses and acts enough for all three of them. She plasters on a syrupy sweet smile and throws her arms around Steve’s shoulders. “Oh, no. My fiancé and my best friend were just helping me with some honeymoon destinations.”  

“Right. We’re getting married,” Steve lamely tacks on to Nat’s statement. Quinn has to bite down on her bottom lip hard to hold back her laughter, but can’t totally do it and has to cover it with a cough. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see him shove his hands in the pockets of his jacket, probably to hide his wedding band.  

“Congratulations,” the employee replies cheerily, attention completely on Steve now. Not exactly the best move because Steve can be awkward, but there’s no other way. Nat and Quinn move their attention back to the laptop where the tracer has started to narrow down a location. “Where are you guys thinking about going?”  

Steve glances down at the laptop. “New Jersey,” he blurts as he repeats what’s popped up on the screen. Quinn winces in sympathy for him because, as a native New Yorker, that must’ve hurt his soul.  

“Oh.” Yeah, terrible honeymoon spot. Quinn and Steve went to a beach. The _Apple_ employee has went silent and Quinn takes a quick peek over at him and Steve. The employee squints at Steve, that same look a person has when they’re trying to remember why another person is so familiar. Both Steve and Quinn panic, afraid that Steve’s about to be made as Captain America. “I have the exact same glasses,” the employee declares when he has his epiphany.  

“Wow, you two are practically twins,” Nat pipes up dryly and Quinn elbows her in the side because that is not helpful.  

Thankfully, the employee is none the wiser to Nat’s sarcasm. “Yeah, I wish.” The employee motions towards Steve’s…entire body. “Specimen,” he adds with a nervous laugh. Quinn can relate. Steve _is_ a specimen. “Uh, if you guys need anything,” he waves his badge, “I’ve been Aaron.”  

“Thank you.” Aaron, the _Apple_ employee, scurries away and Steve looks back down at the laptop. This tracer may’ve been able to pinpoint it down to New Jersey, but that’s not enough for them. It may be no Texas, but they can’t search the whole state of New Jersey. In a very bad move, Quinn pulls out Tony’s cell phone to check their time and her jaw clenches. They’ve officially moved past the ten minute mark. The STRIKE team is here, no doubt about it. Steve must sense Quinn’s impatience and hisses at Nat, “You said nine minutes. Come on.”  

Nat shushes him. “Relax.” Finally, finally, an exact location pops up on the laptop and both Steve and Quinn both lean in closer to stare at the screen in shock. Nat notices and asks them, “You know it?”  

How could they not? Wheaton, New Jersey. More specifically, Camp Lehigh. For Steve, it was where he went to Basic, where he was officially chosen by Abraham Erskine for Project Rebirth, and it was where he met Peggy for the very first time. For Quinn, the memories of that place aren’t as nice as Steve’s. Sure, it’s where SHIELD was officially started, but it’s where she found out that everyone wanted to keep it a secret that Zola had been taken in under the not-so-watchful eye of the American government. She didn’t have nice Peggy memories there.  

“We used to.” Quinn then snarls under her breath, “Fuck me sideways.” She leans across Nat to yank the flash drive out of the laptop. “Let’s go.”  

Goddamn it, Quinn had hoped their luck would last a little while more, but it looks like it ran out as the three of them walk out of the store. Up ahead, mixed in with the crowd, she can see two familiar faces. STRIKE team. It makes sense that they would head for the Apple store. There aren’t many stores with usable laptops on display like that.  

“Standard tac-team,” Steve announces. “Two behind, two across, two coming straight at us. If they make us, I’ll engage, you two hit the south escalator to the metro.”

Steve has this bad habit where he comes at every hostile situation like a soldier and, in this case, that’s bad. Not to mention that his plan is terrible. This place is too public, the STRIKE team is armed, and the only other option besides a brawl would be for Steve to surrender which won’t happen on Quinn’s watch. Quinn knows not to come at this like a soldier, but she doesn’t know what they could do, so she waits on Nat to make a decision since she’s the real expert here.  

Nat delivers. “Shut up and put your arm around me. Laugh at something I said.”

“What?”

“ _Do it_ ,” both Nat and Quinn snap at Steve at the same time. He doesn’t hesitate a second longer and does as he’s told. Quinn herself turns her head toward them and pretends to laugh along with Steve’s very fake one. It works like a charm and the two agents walk past them without even a second glance in their direction. Steve is so stunned that he actually does a double take over his shoulder to make sure the agents haven’t turned back around. Quinn doesn’t need to look. She trusts Nat’s skills.

Their trek to the escalator is tense and silent. It didn’t seem so far away before, but that’s probably because the enemy wasn’t so close. If they can make it there to it, they’re in the clear. That leads out to the exit. And the three of them _do_ make it there, to the escalator, so Quinn thinks they’ve done it…until she can see none other than one Brock Rumlow. He’s on the opposite side, on his way up the escalator rather than down like the three of them.

As much of a _fucker_ that he is, he’s one of SHIELD’s best. Hydra’s best, now that she thinks about it. Her instincts have always warned her about him. She’s never liked the way he stares after her and Steve. It must’ve been a power trip for him, to be at her and Steve’s sides and be Hydra the whole time. But the reason she hasn’t put him in the hospital is because he’s smart and he’s attentive. There’s no way the three of them can hide like they did with the other two. This escalator is too small for them to blend in with the crowd. Unless he looks away, they’re busted.

It isn’t only Quinn that can see Rumlow headed toward them. Nat clocks Rumlow at almost the same time Quinn does and when she does, Nat whirls around to face Quinn and Steve. “Kiss me,” she demands since Steve is directly in front of her.

Not…exactly the move Quinn expected Nat would make here, she’ll admit.

“ _What_?”

“Public displays of affection make people very uncomfortable.”

“Yes, they do,” Steve agrees and his eyes dart over to Quinn quickly. “Me, especially, when my wife is standing _right next to me_ and she’s _not_ the one I’m kissing.”

Natasha doesn’t let Steve have a chance to put another word in. She wraps a hand around the back of Steve’s neck and pulls him down for a chaste—or so Quinn hopes for Steve’s sake—kiss. Quinn’s about to turn her head away, but to her shock, Rumlow turns his head away first. Holy shit, it actually worked. She honestly expected Rumlow to be such a creep that he’d actually want to watch them kiss because both Steve and Nat make a pretty picture.

Rumlow passes the three of them by and Nat immediately pulls away from Steve. As Nat turns around and starts to walk down the last few steps that’re left on the escalator, she drawls, “You still uncomfortable?”

“I am,” Quinn mutters. “Only because I’m a little offended I wasn’t your first choice.”

\---

Someone at the mall back in D.C is about to be madder than a mother fucker when they walk outside and see their brand new truck has been stolen. The three of them can’t be totally sure that Natasha isn’t a wanted woman by now, but they didn’t want to take that bet. Even _if_ Hydra really is _that_ naïve, if they saw Nat’s car spotted outside the D.C area, they’d be on them in a heartbeat. So, best to play it safe and steal someone else’s truck. They most likely have twenty-four hours before police start to act on the theft.

It was a unanimous decision that Quinn drive—well, unanimous between Steve and Nat because Quinn didn’t have a choice in the matter. Personally, Quinn thinks that Steve and Nat are both maniacs behind the wheel, so she wasn’t about to complain a whole lot when they wanted her to drive. Even with an axe that hangs above their heads, the drive has been a pretty pleasant one. They should all take a road trip sometime when the world isn’t in peril.

Just as they drive across the New Jersey state line, Natasha suddenly and amusedly inquires, “Where did Captain America learn how to steal a car?”

In unison, Steve and Quinn answer, “Nazi Germany.” Steve, who is in the backseat, then adds, “And we’re borrowing. Take your feet of the dash.” Because Quinn is a _responsible_ driver, she doesn’t turn her head to look at Nat’s expression. But Nat does hum in response and out of the corner of Quinn’s eye, she can see Nat do as she’s told and drop her feet away from the dashboard.

“This comes from the man who, when Doctor Erskine called him out on how he’d tried to enlist and was turned down in five different cities—which was _illegal_ , by the way—he said that Erskine didn’t have the right file.” Quinn rolls her eyes but has a surge of fondness for her husband.

“History books never mentioned that,” Nat remarks.

“They never do.” In Quinn’s experience, history books keep shit black and white. There was a lot that the Commandos _had_ to do because there was a war on. Hell, there’s a lot that _Quinn’s_ had to do, in those decades while Steve was in the ice, when she was on SHIELD’s dime, that the public wouldn’t be happy to hear. She supposes she’ll have to answer for that once SHIELD and Hydra’s dirty laundry is aired. “Anyway, still not sure who came up with that harebrained idea, but when I came out of the Hydra warehouse we’d blown to hell, all the Commandos were crowded around a truck. How to steal a car is the one bad habit I learned from Steve, not the other way around.”

“Dernier came up with the idea,” Steve tells her. “And maybe I _did_ pass the bad habit onto you—which I didn’t, I put the blame all on Dernier—but you’re the one who kept it up with these modern times.”

Point to Steve there, she’ll let him have that much. “Look, I’ve tinkered with cars here and there, is that such a crime?”

“Learning about cars and learning how to steal cars are two separate things,” Nat points out playfully.

“I think the real lesson today,” Quinn starts slowly, “is that I know what I want for my birthday next month.” That’s if they can stay alive to see another month and Hydra has really tried their hardest to make that not happen. “Husband, for my birthday, I want one of these here pickup trucks. No! This is a _Chevrolet_. I want a _Ford_. I want a _Ford F-150_.”

“Careful, sweetheart, your Kentucky is showing,” Steve teases. Like every other time Quinn and Steve flirt in front of her, Nat pretends to gag. Surely she knows that it only makes Quinn and Steve want to do it more when she does that. “We live in the city. What do we need a truck for?”

“We don’t _have_ to live in the city, y’know. I still have my family’s horse farm in Kentucky. We could move there.” Quinn’s eyes dart to the rearview mirror and she can see Steve bite his lip to hold back a smile. “C’mon, city slicker, think about it. You could kick back, relax, be my pretty trophy husband, and I’ll tend to the horses.”

“Hey, Natasha, who do you think they would spot first in Kentucky—Captain America or Quinn Hayden?”

“Who says you have to be Captain America and Quinn Hayden?” Quinn does quickly turn her head to toss Nat an incredulous look. “There have been so many movies made about you two that prove you two have some doppelgangers out there. Be a couple that _look_ like Steve Rogers and Quinn Hayden. You can be anyone you want. Just…make something up.”

“What, like you?” Steve shoots back.

“I don’t know. The truth is a matter of circumstances. It’s not all things to all people all the time.” Quinn doesn’t need to see to know what Nat has that wry smile on her face, the one she always has when she’s too hard on herself. “And neither am I.”

“That’s a tough way to live.”

“It’s a good way not to die, though.”

This conversation, Quinn notes, has went in a whole other direction. She’s never admitted this to another person, but she had that same idea, once upon a time—to leave behind the name Quinn Esther Hayden and the pain that came with it. It isn’t as hard as Steve thinks it is, but it isn’t as easy at Nat makes it out to be, either. When Quinn had too much hurt built up, she wanted to be a whisper on the wind, blown to the four corners of the earth. She learned a lot, in those periods, but…in the end, she always went back home. Eventually, she up and quit because she realized it’s impossible for her to exist without her love and attachments to other people. She thrives with love and as much as it hurt to see the people she cared most about start to wither away, she’d rather have them than not. It scares her to be alone. Every time she stripped down, in those distant lands, she always saw reminders of who she is, truly, deep down.

Quinn can hear Steve in the backseat, hear him slide forward. Then, she can hear Nat shuffle around in her own seat. The two of them must move so they can stare at each other directly. “You know, it’s kind of hard to trust someone when you don’t know who that someone really is,” Steve points out.

“Yeah.” Nat sounds distant, like she’s stuck in her head. “Who do you want me to be?”

“How about a friend?”

That makes Nat laugh softly. “Well, there’s a chance you might be in the wrong business, Rogers.”

The scars that the Red Room made on Natasha are still sometimes so clear to the people who know her best. Most everyone is lucky to be born a person, live as one. She’d never been allowed that chance until later in life. When she was a little kid, she was stolen away and forced to weave stories like a spider weaves webs, forced to become no one so she could pretend to be anyone. She became _a_ black widow, but she was one of many. One piece of many that made up a weapon for the Red Room. That kind of trauma can never be wiped away, not really, but it can be overcome. She’s Natasha Romanoff now. She’s _the_ Black Widow. Formerly KGB, runaway from the Red Room, SHIELD operative, soulmate of Clint Barton, friend of Steve Rogers and Quinn Hayden. She’s so much more. She’s her very own person now. And once someone becomes a person, it’s hard to leave that behind and live your life as a story.

Natasha talks the talk, makes it seem like she could up and vanish into the wind, but she’s no better than Quinn. No better at all.

\---

The camp has seen better days, that’s for damn sure. It isn’t what it used to be, not one bit. As the SSR bled into SHIELD, people would be in and out of this place at all hours of the day. Even after the war, it served a purpose to the army, so it was kept in tip-top shape. Now…it’s a shadow of what it used to be. Time and absence have worn it down and it’s started to crumble and collapse in on itself. It really is a shame because this is where it all started. There aren’t many people left alive who know about that, of course, and that’s the problem.

It was here, in this camp, that Steve was chosen for Project Rebirth. Abraham Erskine saw Steve for who he’s always been and made it so Steve’s body matched his heart. Without that, he never would’ve been allowed in the war and Quinn never would’ve met him and Bucky. Hell, she probably would’ve died alone on Zola’s table. Steve and Bucky would’ve never died, either. Died is a loose term, but they were dead in Quinn’s mind at the time. She would’ve never come up with that initially pure idea that eventually birthed SHIELD.

Once SHIELD was born, it became too much to contain in this little place, so it went on to better pastures. This place that bore witness to such a pivotal moment in history was left behind to time. There’s a metaphor in there somewhere, she thinks. The camp became a relic. It became buried in the past. It wasn’t remembered. It wasn’t cared for and it’s started to rot. The same could be said of SHIELD, she supposes…

…the same could probably be said about Quinn, but she won’t open that can of worms quite yet.

“This is it?” Steve double checks with Nat as the three of them climb out of the truck and walk up to the weathered entrance.

“The file came from these coordinates.”

Steve’s head is turned toward the old and weathered sign on the fence that declares the camp’s name. “So did I.”

“And so did SHIELD,” Quinn murmurs. Both Steve and Nat turn their heads to look at her and she stares out at the camp wistfully. “I was in medical school, in Philadelphia, when she called me and told me she wanted to base it out of here. She said to me, ‘ _this is where I met Steve, where Doctor Erskine saw the man we love._ ’ This is where it all started, when you think about it. Without this place, Steve never would’ve went overseas, I never would’ve met him, and I never would’ve had the idea for SHIELD. Can you believe she wanted my permission to start it here? Like I had a claim on your memory. I said, he wasn’t mine and mine alone, do whatever the hell you want.”

They have questions, of course they do. Their curious stares make her skin crawl. This _should_ be a place full of nice memories, but not for Quinn. The last time she was at this camp, there was only fury, pain, and betrayal. Maybe the real reason it hurts to be here is because it isn’t stained with Steve to Quinn. It’s stained with _Peggy_. For as much as Quinn tries to run away from the reminders of Peggy—because they’re also reminders of how Peggy doesn’t have much time left in this world—she suddenly turns around every corner and is faced with those memories.

“Who exactly is _she_?” Nat asks, casual about it.

Quinn doesn’t answer the question, mainly because they don’t have the time. Yeah, she could make it a simple answer, explain who Peggy is in relation to SHIELD, but that’s not what Nat really wants to know here. She wants to know who Peggy is to Quinn. So, no, she won’t answer Nat’s question. Another reason she won’t answer is because it pisses her off, if she’s honest. Nat knows full and damn well how to read emotions and anyone with a brain can tell this is a sore spot for Quinn, but Nat went and pushed, anyway.

Wordlessly, Quinn reaches over to tap the shield which Steve has on his arm and he hands it over to her. Quinn’s silence puts worry in his eyes instead of Nat’s curiosity. They can talk about it later. There’s a lot that Quinn and Steve need to talk about later. Quinn focuses on the familiarity of the shield as she slides her arm through the straps. She walks past Nat, toward the main gate that’s kept shut by a padlock and a bunch of chains, and smashes them all with the edge of the shield.

Now, technically, there’s a lot of terrain to cover in the camp. After all, it _was_ an army base at one point and hid a budding government organization. The AI _could_ be stored anywhere on the grounds, but Quinn knows the best place to start. She suspects it’s hidden in the old SHIELD headquarters. It wouldn’t be all that hard to set up shop in any of these old buildings, but why start over when a secret office has already been made? It would be a real ballsy move, to have a Hydra AI be in the former SHIELD base, but it’s not like there are many people alive that would think to come back to this old place, anyway.

“I know where we should check first,” Quinn announces.

“There’s no need. This is a dead end.” Nat raises up her cell phone up in the air. It’s been hardwired with who knows how many different functions and one of them is probably to check for the kind of signals the AI would radiate. “Zero heat signatures, zero waves, not even radio. Whoever wrote the file must have used a router to throw people off.”

“ _Or_ …maybe that’s exactly what Hydra wants you to think,” Quinn counters. “There’s a bunker over there that they built when the war was over.” She points at said bunker that posed as an ammunitions building back in the day. “SHIELD was started in that bunker. It was built in the forties, but I bet my money it works better than you think it does. The AI is probably in there.”

“It wasn’t hidden very well,” Steve remarks. “Army regulations forbid storing ammunitions within five hundred yards of the barracks. That building is in the wrong place.”

“I think they expected that not everyone would be as much a nerd as you are, dear,” Quinn tells him with a crooked smile. Steve pouts at the insinuation and she knows he’s about to deny that he _isn’t_ a nerd. So, she reminds him, “You took _books_ to boot camp with you, Steve. You’re a nerd.”

“Embrace it. Quinn thinks it’s totally hot,” Nat assures him. Quinn’s cheeks heat up when Nat winks at her. How exactly did Quinn end up with so many little shits in her life? Does this mean she has a type? She’s pretty sure she’s pondered this same question multiple times in her life.

Quinn leads the way to the hidden SHIELD bunker. There’s another padlock that stands in their way and keeps the doors sealed shut. She still has the shield and break the padlock easily. Someone would think Hydra would keep the place locked up better. Guess they banked on the belief that no one would ever come back and visit this run-down place. There probably aren’t any other locks from here, so she passes the shield back to Steve before she moves inside.

From there, it’s all muscle memory. There’s the old hidden staircase that she reveals and it leads down to the offices. As soon as she’s down the stairs, she reaches over to flip the switch. Row by row, the lights slowly flicker to life and, on the very back wall, is SHIELD’s outdated but still very familiar symbol. The fact that this place still has power, after all these decades, must mean something. SHIELD, obviously, has a bad habit where they leave their past in the darkness.

“Meet SHIELD’s birthplace,” Quinn breathes out.

Steve and Natasha spread out, probably to search for the AI, but Quinn doesn’t think Hydra would be _that_ obvious. Their AI wouldn’t be out here in the open, in the main lobby. It must be hidden in one of the back offices. Jesus, she prays that they didn’t set it up in Peggy’s old office. She doesn’t want Peggy’s name to be defiled that way. She rushes toward the back of the floor where Colonel Phillips, Howard, and Peggy all had their own personal office. Quickly, she checks each one, but they’re as empty as the rest of the place appears to be.

Quinn’s about to turn around and meet back with the other two, but stops short when she catches another door out of the corner of her eye. She stops in front of a door that, to her shock, has QUINN HAYDEN printed in block letters on the glass. Hesitantly, she reaches out to run her fingers across the name, like she wants to make sure they’re actually there. This door was never here before, was it?

Steve presses in behind Quinn and places his hand over the one she still has on the door. “Even after that horrible fight we had, she still put this door up for me,” she explains past the lump in her throat. “I was a stubborn asshole and it was over a decade before I came back to SHIELD, and she still—” _held out hope_. Even after all the nasty shit Quinn snarled at her in a fit of rage, even when they’d essentially broken up and broken each other’s hearts, Peggy put a door up for Quinn. This shouldn’t make her so damn emotional. It’s a door, simple as that, but…then she reasons out loud that, “Howard would’ve been happy to keep me off the roster, but you always considered me a founder, didn’t you, Pegs?”

Quinn forces her hand to drop away from the door and crosses her arms over her chest. She swallows hard and blinks her stinging eyes. They don’t have time for Quinn to be emotional, but Steve—because he’s _Steve_ —decides that they _do_. He presses closer, so he’s pressed up to her back, and kisses the side of her head. “Tell me what happened here, Quinn.”

She doesn’t take his bait. She _can’t_ take it. There’s too much to tell him about the past and there’s too much to do here in the present—it’s one or the other and she takes the option where there’s less tears on her end. Well, after what they’ve learned about Bucky, there’ll eventually be tears, but that’s the future. If Steve still wants to talk, she can tell him about it then. She steps out of the safety of his arms which is an answer in and of itself. She doesn’t want to be so distant, but if she’s afraid if she opens her mouth, she won’t stop. Stories will pour out of her mouth, tears from her eyes, and she’ll shatter like the delicate glass that has her name written on it. At this exact moment in time, she has to be steel. Still, she feels bad that she has to leave Steve out to dry. She briefly squeezes his hand in a show of comfort before she walks past him to meet back up with Nat.

There’s only one other room that hasn’t been checked. It used to be the old records room, but it was obviously emptied out when they moved. As soon as Nat opens the door, on the wall are pictures of the founders of SHIELD. Same as with the office’s door, there are four pictures when Quinn’s always told herself there should only be three. It’s an old picture of Quinn, black and white and faded like the other three. That’s probably the same picture she took when she first enlisted with the SSR. The smile on her face in the picture is an easy one, easier than it would’ve been if it’d been taken so recently after she lost her soulmates.

“Haven’t you always told me you’re _not_ a founder of SHIELD?” Nat nods toward Quinn’s picture. She doesn’t let Quinn have the chance to answer—she wouldn’t have, anyway, because she still doesn’t think she deserves to be up on that well. She then moves her attention to Howard’s picture. “There’s Stark’s father.”

“Howard,” Steve supplies as he walks to stand next to her and Quinn. Good that he corrected Nat because Quinn has a whole lot ruder names she could call Howard Stark.

“Who’s the girl?” Quinn walks away on the assumption that Steve will answer Nat’s question, but he doesn’t do it, either. Guess that’s an answer, too. Before she follows after Steve and Quinn, Nat whispers under her breath, “So, _that_ is she.” Yes, that’s her, Quinn thinks. That’s their Peggy. That’s another person that Steve and Quinn love and will lose—sooner than either of them want to admit. Nat should understand why they’re not too keen to talk about Peggy.

The three of them walk further into the emptied room, but Quinn stops when she hears a peculiar sound. She cocks her head to the side and, behind her, Steve and Nat both stop. Wind blows, that’s what the sound is, and it’s close to her. Steve can hear it now, too. There’re no windows in this room, so that means there’s some kind of crack…or a secret hidden entrance. Both she and Steve follow the sound and stand in front of one particular bookshelf.

“If you’re already working in a secret office…” Steve pushes at the bookshelf and the entire section of shelves moves away to reveal an elevator. An elevator that Quinn knows for a fact was never there when SHIELD was here. “Why do you need to hide the elevator?” He turns his head toward her. “This here before?”

“No,” Quinn immediately answers. She studies the elevator more closely. “This is too modern, anyway. It’s an old elevator, but not _that_ old. It was built _after_ SHIELD was outta here.” Then, to Nat, she smugly says, “And _you_ wanted to leave. I told you there was somethin’ here.”

Nat huffs and then shoulders past Steve and Quinn. There’s a little numbered panel which is where they need to enter a password to open the elevator. Nat holds her phone over the keypad and a hologram reveals the most recently pressed numbers and comes up with an accurate password from there. She punches it in and a light above the panel flashes green. The elevator doors open for them and the three of them all shuffles inside. The elevator starts to descend at a crawl and it takes longer than she expects. This place is _deep_ down.

When the doors open, it’s to a nearly pitch black room. The elevator illuminates the room better. There are hanging lights and some light that emits from a power source under the grates in the floor, but it’s dim. Steve and Quinn can find their way, but even with her enhanced senses, it’s hard to tell what else fills up the room. There _is_ some kind of…control center ahead of them, so she and Steve move forward to it while they keep Nat in the middle of them. They’re more prepared than her to handle any surprises in the dark. Behind them, the elevator doors slide shut ominously. Not creepy at all.

Once they’re closer to the middle of the room, the lights slowly start to flicker to full power and the entire basement is bathed in light. This basement is enormous and _old_. There are computers everywhere and they aren’t _forties_ old, but she reckons they have to be from the seventies, at the latest. Machines line the walls, take up almost every square inch of the rest of the basement. Like she suspected, there _is_ a control center. There’s a control panel with a computer screen and an old-fashioned video camera. In front of the station, there’s a chair that seems a _little_ newer, but it’s old. The entire panel is as ancient and coated in dust as the rest of the place.

“This can’t be the data-point.” Nat looks around the room in disbelief. “This technology is ancient.”

Quinn takes a step closer to the control panel and notices that some of the dust has been wiped away, like someone was there somewhat recently. Off to the side, there’s a flash drive port. “Just because it’s ancient doesn’t mean it can’t keep up with the times.” Quinn plucks the flash drive from Nat’s hand and reaches to plug it into the USB port.

Suddenly, the basement comes to life. Computers whir as they turn on and the tapes inside them spin and spin. Lights flicker and machines beep. As the control panel, the main computer monitor blinks on. On its own, a question is typed out and a little robotic voice asks, “Initiate system?”

Nat hunches over to type and answer on the old keyboard. “Y-E-S, spells yes.” The entire control panel starts to crank up and Nat smirks at the control panel. “ _Shall we play a game_?” Lord, what a _nerd_. Never mind the little shits as her type. She apparently has a thing for nerds. “It’s from a movie that—”

Since Quinn and Steve didn’t immediately reply, Nat’s first instinct was to assume that Steve didn’t understand the reference, but this time Steve’s ahead of the curve thanks to Quinn’s help. Tony’s help, actually. He demanded Quinn show Steve that movie. “Yeah, I saw it,” Steve explains to Nat with a little smirk.

That main computer monitor starts to flash and flicker with code, but it moves in an unnatural way. A non-mechanical way, she should say. In the code, there’s a picture. Oh. Oh, wait, no. That’s a face. A _face_ starts to take shape on the screen. The face is round, there’s a nose, a chin, and there are those big, round glasses. She squints at it because there’s a kind of familiarity to that face. _Why_ is it so familiar to her?

Quinn’s internal question is answered the next instant when another voice breaks the silence. An accented voice that Quinn prayed to God she would never have to hear another day in her lifetime. It’s the voice of a man that’s supposed to be dead, only alive in her worst dreams and the consequences of his actions. This is a sound that, unfortunately, she will always remember because this man helped tear her world apart at one point. “Rogers, Steven—born 1918. Hayden, Quinn—born 1920. Romanoff, Natalia Alianovna—born 1984.”

The video camera above the main monitor moves over each of them as it states their names. Rather than believe it’s a sentient machine, Nat tries to reason, “It’s…some kind of a recording.” Much as Quinn wants to believe that, she can’t. The universe has proven _repeatedly_ that Quinn has the shittiest luck, so _of course_ this little bastard would come from the dead. His very life was an insult to Quinn and now his death is, too.

“I am not a recording, _Fräulein_. I may not be the man I was when the Captain took me prisoner in 1945, but I _am_.” To the side of the main monitor, on one of the smaller screens, a black and white picture pops up, and it’s him. That…that _fucker_. The one who started all this, who was stupidly invited inside SHIELD and then spread his filthy disease—his _evil_.

It takes every ounce of willpower to hold back her temper. “ _Zola_ ,” she spits out. She has to physically clench her fists because, otherwise, she’d tear this machine apart, piece by little piece. It only seems like a fair trade since he did the same to her so many years before.

Nat looks over at Quinn and Steve. “Do you know this thing?”

Slowly, cautiously, Steve takes a step down from the raised floor and moves around to examine the back of the computer. Like he expects there’s some person hidden somewhere or a hint that this computer isn’t the real deal—if only they were that damn lucky. “Arnim Zola was a German scientist who worked for the Red Skull. He’s been dead for years.” Quinn was the one to tell Steve the exact date. There’d been satisfaction in his eyes to know Zola was dead. Well, _supposed_ to be dead, anyway.

Okay, seriously, Quinn’s really sick and tired of this whole _miraculously back from the dead_ bullshit.

“First correction, I am Swiss.” Just her luck that this computer can be an asshole. “Second, look around you. I have never been more alive.” _And_ the computer can be dramatic. God, she’d think that Tony built this. “In 1972, I received a terminal diagnosis. Science could not save my body. My mind, however, that was worth saving…on 200,000 feet of data banks. You are standing in my brain.”

 _Ew_.

Steve loops back around to stand on Quinn’s other side. “How did you get here?”

“Invited.”

“Operation Paperclip,” Quinn snarls. “After the war, SHIELD decided to recruit German scientists who had any kind of strategic value. They naively thought they could control this asshole, I wanted to put a bullet in his brain, and there was a…disagreement. _Zola_ was the reason I left SHIELD and didn’t come back until the sixties.”

“They thought I could help their cause,” Zola says primly. “I also helped my own. I was lucky it was only you who saw through me, Doctor Hayden, but it wouldn’t have mattered. By the time I came to SHIELD, there were already many of us. Cut off one head, two more shall take its place.”

“Prove it,” Steve demands hotly.

“Accessing archive.” The smaller computer screens suddenly come to life. The very first picture they see is of Johann Schmidt, the Red Skull. “Hydra was founded on the belief that humanity could not be trusted with its own freedom.” Bullshit. Bull-fucking-shit. “What we did not realize was that if you try to take that freedom, they resist.” Old wartime reels are played and she watches videos of the Allies in action, Steve sometimes at the frontlines. “The war taught us much. Humanity needed to surrender its freedom willingly. After the war, SHIELD was founded and I was recruited.” There are flashes of pictures that show SHIELD’s earliest days. There are even more pictures of Zola and people she can only assume are accomplices. Quinn is horrified to see too many familiar faces. To see _friends_. “The new Hydra grew. A beautiful parasite inside SHIELD. For seventy years, Hydra has been secretly feeding crisis, reaping war. And when history did not cooperate, history was changed.” Quinn’s sick to her stomach when she sees flashes of a familiar metal arm.

It…it really _has_ been Hydra. They’ve been inside SHIELD this whole time. This whole time that she’s been on the run, it was always a theory, even when all the evidence piled up. To have the confirmation, to hear the name, it still comes like a punch to the stomach. The truth is even more terrible because now they can see the enormous scale of what Hydra’s done this whole time. Deep down, she knew there’d be a body count, but…how _many_ innocent people have been murdered by Hydra?

“That’s impossible.” It isn’t only Quinn that’s horrified. Natasha left the KGB, left the Red Room because SHIELD offered salvation and redemption. This whole time, it’s been _Hydra_. “Why hasn’t anyone at SHIELD stopped you by now?” Why hasn’t _Quinn_ known about it up until now? How were they able to hide so easily?

“Accidents will happen.” The breath catches in Quinn’s throat because newspaper articles that told the world about _Howard Stark’s_ death appear on the screen, quickly followed by a confidential SHIELD report on Nick’s death. They knew that Nick was a casualty of Hydra because he’d come too close to the truth, but _Howard_? Howard _and_ Maria? It…it wasn’t an accident. Quinn had suspected foul play because Howard had made a super soldier serum and maybe someone stole it and murdered them in the process, but it’d been ruled out. Their bodies had been examined by SHIELD. That doesn’t mean shit now, does it? Who had examined their bodies? It…it’d been…oh, _no_. Oh, _God_. All these years, people close to her….she’s been betrayed. Did…did Hydra send out…? Oh. Oh, Jesus, what about _Tony_? Tony doesn’t have any _clue_.

Zola, the little _fucker_ that he is, doesn’t let her have time to reel in the shock. He continues to _boast_ and to shove the world’s shittiest achievement in their faces—specifically _Steve’s_ face. “Hydra created a world so chaotic that humanity is finally ready to sacrifice its freedom to gain its security. Once the purification process is complete, Hydra’s new world order will arise. We won, Captain. Your death amounts to the same as your life—a zero sum.” Newspapers and articles that advertise Steve’s death are shown on the screen. _ROGERS DISAPPEARS_ and _THE HERO WHO SACRIFICED EVERYTHING_ taunt Steve and they taunt Quinn because she _lived_ it. She lived with it _all_.

The dam Quinn’s tried to use on her emotions collapses and red bleeds into her vision. Rage courses in her veins and she rips the shield away from Steve’s arm viciously. She takes the shield in her hands, storms toward the monitor where Zola’s face stares back at them, and raises it above her head. As she’s about to slam it down on the screen, shatter it and Zola to bits, his purr stops her. “And I do have to thank _you_ , Doctor Hayden. None of this would be possible without you.” The _insinuation_ alone makes her want to throw up, it’s so vile. It’s _against her very nature_. Then…more pictures and Quinn’s fury is frozen over by horror. This photo is of _Quinn_. From the late sixties and she’s dressed in a uniform SHIELD had come up with for her at the time, when they made her their soldier. Color drains from her face as they’re shown redacted mission reports and pictures, each one worse than the last. “We knew you would always be our greatest threat. Most wanted to kill you, but I admit I didn’t want to see my perfect creation wasted. We could not kill you, so we wrapped you in chains and you performed spectacularly. You were our perfect soldier. We wouldn’t have come so far without you on a leash, at our beck and call—”

Steve is the one to snap now. He shoves past Quinn so he can smash the screen with his bare hand. It splinters and cracks and he pulls back while he sucks in sharp, angry breaths. Quinn, though, has to scurry away from the screen and tries to swallow the panic that skyrockets to the surface of her mind. It wasn’t an insinuation, not a damn bit. It was the _truth_. All those missions and orders she blindly followed, all those people she had to kill, all the mud she had to trek through both physically and emotionally, all _the blood on her hands_ … _all of it_ was done in the name of _Hydra_. She can’t think past that. All that she thinks she’s done to _help_ people, it’s been in vain. He won. _Zola_ won. _Hydra_ won.

Quinn’s world is on the brink of collapse. Her heart beats so fast that she can’t breathe. No, no, no. She can’t think like this. She has to hold it up, only a little while more. They haven’t won yet. Not while she still lives and breathes. They’ll have to shoot her down like a dog in the street to make her stop. She has to melt away the ice-cold fear in her blood, let the anger fuel her. Thankfully, Zola’s face comes back on one of the smaller computer monitors to the side, and she hones in on that. She focuses on his irritatingly snooty voice as he continues with, “As I was saying…”

They’re not done with Zola yet. “What’s on this drive?” Steve demands to know, still furious but focused on what they need to know.

“Project Insight…requires insight. So, I wrote an algorithm.”

Both Steve and Quinn are _not_ in the calmest state of mind. Nat picks up questioning. “What kind of algorithm? What does it do?”

“The answer to your question is fascinating. Unfortunately, you shall be too dead to hear it.”

Quinn, who has trained extensively with Steve and the shield, automatically reacts the second she hears a loud sound. She’s still the one with the shield, so she whirls around and launches it toward the elevator where a secondary set of security doors slide shut. She’s too slow. The shield bounces against the thick steel and ricochets back to her, but Steve catches it on an instinct. The three of them are now locked inside Zola’s asshole brain and Quinn can’t think of a worse fate.

“Guys, we got a bogey.” Quinn and Steve jerk around to stare at Nat who, in turn, looks at her phone in alarm. “Short range ballistic. Thirty seconds tops.”

Okay, _now_ Quinn can’t think of a worse fate.

“Who the fuck ordered a missile strike?” Quinn shouts. Stupid question. It should be obvious who ordered the strike at this point.

“SHIELD.”

“Captain, Doctor, I am afraid I have been stalling,” Zola admits. The devious little fuck only told them this much to snitch to SHIELD. The three of them are trapped now. There’s no place to run. They’re deep underground and the elevator is the only way out. Adrenaline pumps in Quinn’s veins and she desperately looks around for some kind of cover because that’s their only other option now. If they can’t leave, they have to try and weather the blast. Goddamn it, this is a _bunker_. There should be some kind of protection. “Admit it,” Zola continues. “It’s better this way.”

 _The grates in the floor_. Why didn’t she see it sooner? That small, hole in the ground the grates cover. Pair it with an unbreakable shield and the combined strength of Quinn and Steve’s serums. Not the best, but it’ll have to do. Quinn sprints toward the spots in the floor and bends over to rip the metal grates away from the floor. She flings them to the side and both Steve and Natasha run over to meet with Quinn.

Just before the missile hits, Quinn can hear Zola’s last words. “We’re the three of us…out of time.”

\---

Quinn’s arm has started to tremble under the strain. Concrete presses down on the shield that she and Steve hold above all their heads. Rubble has them pinned in on all sides, but at least it blocked the flames. No one should have severe burns, if any at all, but the smoke inhalation is a whole other story. If she had to take a bet, she’d put the smoke on what made Natasha pass out. Or she could’ve been hit on the head with a stray piece of concrete. Quinn can’t be absolutely sure about the cause until they climb out of this mess. Steve, on the other hand, shouldn’t be hurt because when they hopped down in the hole, he was pressed into the corner. Quinn was the one who ended up closer to the outside. She and Steve curled protectively around Nat and the shield did cover most of Quinn, too, but a piece of steel fell and slashed open her leg. At least it wasn’t crushed.

Steve is the first one to make a move. He twists his arm so his hand brushes past Quinn’s, probably to check for a response. “I’m here.” Quinn’s voice is raw from the smoke and dust in her throat. She can hear the quiet sigh of relief from Steve. “We have to move. I can hear planes. Not here yet, but close. They want to check for bodies.”

“I smell blood.”

“It’s mine. Somethin’ caught my leg.”

“Can you put weight on it?”

Well, it’s not exactly like she has room to check. Besides, she can always move unless the bone is broken. Not even that could stop her, actually. She could move unless the bone protruded from her skin. “I’ll live. You decide what we do next. I can carry Natasha while you move the rock or we can do it the other way around.”

“I could do it by myself.” He _could_ , but she won’t let him, and he knows that. It would be faster if the both of them worked as a team here. He has to pick which option will put less pressure on the wound—carry a body or move a few slabs of concrete. “Fine. Carry Natasha,” he decides. “We make a break for the truck. I hope it wasn’t blown up in the blast.”

Steve and Quinn heave the first slab that’s directly on the shield out of the way. Then, it’s up to him to start to clear away the other chunks that pin them all in. While he heave-hos, Quinn check on Nat’s vitals. No blood or knots around her head, pulse is steady, she quietly wheezes as she breathes, so the smoke inhalation is what knocked her out. Fresh air will help.

When Quinn has the room to move, she stumbles to her feet and winces when she puts pressure down on her leg. She can clean it up when they’re back on the road. Steve shoves the final piece of rock in their way to the side and she can feel the heat of the leftover flames on her skin. The planes are even louder, now that the air is clearer. At least the smoke and rubble will cover their escape. She leans down to take Natasha in her arms.

Before Quinn leaves the base behind, she spits on the ashes. One last farewell to Zola.

\---

It doesn’t hit until about two hours into their trip back to D.C.

For an hour, there’s no time to think. Blame it on the adrenaline, or how worried she is that those planes will hunt them down, or the concern over Natasha, or to treat her own wounds. But then she comes down from the adrenaline rush, the dark skies are clear and those planes are still back at the base, Nat has moved from unconscious to a much needed nap, and Quinn’s serum has started to heal up her gash, so all there is that’s left to do is _think_.

Quinn doesn’t even realize that it’s started to happen—this…rupture. At the one hour mark, she leaned her head on the window and stared out at the dark blurs that speed by with a vacant expression on her face. White noise is in her brain and all she really feels is…numb. So, maybe the breakdown never would’ve started until Steve pulled it out. That’s what they both do. Bottle it up until the other has to uncork it.

Steve moves the truck over to the side of the road and they sit there in silence. Ten minutes pass. Out of the corner of her eye, she can see his hand move on the armrest between them. He opens his palm, an invitation for her to take his hand. _I don’t deserve that comfort_ , Quinn thinks, and _that’s_ when she cracks and splinters inside.

“Victor Gottschalk,” Quinn starts on a whisper. “Goddamn, he must be happy as hell right about now because he’s all I’ve been able to think about this past hour. I’ve known that man since the day I asked him to cover for me while I went to look for our soulmate who I thought was kidnapped at the time. I think, was he Hydra then? He must’ve been. Wouldn’t that be why he didn’t try harder to stop me? Did he know it was an imposter on the other side of the door that blew up in my face? Was he planted there on that team by Zola because Zola knew I’d be friends with anyone that tried to help me find Bucky?”

Steve takes a deep breath. “Quinn—”

“Victor has always been one of the top experts on soulmates and soul marks. I respected him, not only as one doctor to another, but as my friend. He was my _friend_ , Steve, and I listened to him when he told me my marks were fucked up.” She rubs her forehead with a shaking hand and laughs bitterly as she does. “He had such a crush on me, y’know. I have no idea how many years, but he asked me on a date. I couldn’t tell him who I was already in a relationship with, so I lie. It was weird then, what he told me. He said he’d protected my heart for years, kept my interests _safe_. He said I _owed_ him. I was mad, didn’t want to ruin our friendship, so I walked away and he told me it was a mistake. A week later, Bucky’s name was dark. Now…now I think I know what he meant.”

The armrest is all that stands between them, so Steve raises it. Since Quinn won’t come to him, he’ll slide over to her. He presses their shoulders together, but doesn’t take her in his arms yet. He decides to let her lingering rage burn out. “I ask myself,” she hisses because now she realizes she _is_ furious. “How many times did Victor stare at Bucky and then come in the next day, look me in the eyes, and pretend he was my friend? Did he torture Bucky a little less than the other Hydra people and think it was some…some kinda… _favor_ to me? The _only_ little piece of comfort I can find in all this is that Victor must’ve been jealous, knowin’ that I’d never love him because I loved a dead man.” She shakes her head. “No, that ain’t much of a comfort, after all. I bet he wasn’t so keen to protect Bucky from torture when I said no to a date.”

“You didn’t _know_.”

“When this is all said and done, Steve…when we have Bucky back home and safe—” her voice cracks with unshed tears. “Do you really think he’ll be that fucking forgiving? Do you really think the _whole world_ will say to themselves, ‘ _Oh, Quinn didn’t know, so it’ll be okay_ ’?” Tears roll down her cheeks and all she can do is laugh at the idea that she’ll be pardoned for all these crimes. “You saw it on the screens back there and I told you, when you woke up from the ice, that my hands were bloody. I turned into what Doctor Erskine prayed you would never be. I did exactly what they told me like a perfect soldier. Bucky didn’t have a choice, but _I_ did. I always had a choice and I _still followed orders_. And here’s the fruits of my labor, sweetheart! My _goddamn legacy_ ,” she screams.

The next sound Quinn makes isn’t a scream, it’s a wail. Steve wraps his arms around her and she turns to lean into him and _sobs_. It hurts, this truth. It hurts more than words can describe.

 _Fenrir_ , Hydra named her, and now the reason behind the nickname is clearer than ever. It was never whispered in fear, not by the leaders. They said it to insult her. To mock her. To _humiliate_ her. They’ve always had their chains on her. They used her loyalty to SHIELD. People inside _Hydra_ were sent in to be her _friends_ because they needed to keep her compliant. When she wouldn’t shut up, they used her _soulmate_ to make her mute with hurt. That’s what they’ve always done to her. They used her loyalty and love and twisted it into something disgusting and evil.

The worst part is that Hydra was never scared of her. No, she knows by the tender way Zola spoke that they _loved_ her. It sickens her and she’s suddenly sent back in time, to when she was at her weakest and most powerless. They adored her the way someone does their favorite pet.

In the end, Hydra always had two weapons at their disposal—the Winter Soldier and Fenrir.


End file.
